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The member is right to point to that recent work by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The JRF estimates that, if the universal credit standard allowance was set at £120 per week for a single adult and £200 for a couple, that could lift 1.8 million people out of poverty, including 600,000 children, across the UK. That recent report provides stark figures on the number of children who are being held in poverty because universal credit is not fit for purpose.

We will protect the £41 million investment that we are making in the Scottish welfare fund, which will deliver support right across Scotland, which is on top of the continuing investment in discretionary housing payments—which mitigate the bedroom tax—and a number of other measures.

That might be an aspect of how the Scottish child payment could be developed in the future. The way in which the payment was introduced makes that rather impossible, but it might be possible to change the statutory underpinnings for the Scottish child payment when the bill on those statutory underpinnings comes to Parliament soon, and we might be able to look at a more nuanced approach.

The Scottish child payment was delivered as it was to ensure that that happened as quickly as possible. The time between policy decision and implementation was only 18 months, which was the quickest introduction of a benefit either in Scotland or the UK, and was an important aspect of this Government’s anti-poverty measures.

We were well aware that our decisions would mean a decrease to that budget. We are still working through how we can use that budget in different ways to allow more innovative finance, in order to get the maximum number of homes for our budget. That work is on-going and it is important that we continue to look at the different ways of financing, to ensure the maximum number of homes. I will bring in Sean Neill on that. We are continuing to work on how we can maximise that budget, which will, of course, vary the impact assessment at the end of the day.

I draw members’ attention to one of the caveats in the Homes for Scotland report, which says that it does not think that the headline figure given in the report is the actual number of homes needed in Scotland. I appreciate that that figure attracted a lot of attention, but I caveat that with the part of the Homes for Scotland report that says that that is not actually its belief and that not that many homes are actually required.

Forgive me, Mr O’Kane, but my post-flu brain has forgotten the other part of your question. With my apologies to the convener, please say again what that was.

It was about working with stakeholders.

In response to an earlier question, I set out how some of the budget decisions can be interconnected, not just in relation to equality and fairer Scotland impacts but also in relation to some of the other factors involved. Alongside the budget, we published analysis showing the impact that tax and social security measures have had on households with different income levels and characteristics. In response to feedback, this year’s equality and fairer Scotland statement included eight case studies, setting out the rationale for budget decisions in a transparent and accessible way, and one of those was on social security.

A great deal of work goes into the statement itself. This year, that has included a Cabinet-level workshop on the equality and fairer Scotland considerations. We will continue our process on the equality and fairer Scotland statement and make changes to it in the years ahead to develop that work further.

I will bring in one of my officials on that.

One of the reasons for having the regulations is to make sure that we are not working under the interim measures that I spoke about and that we are transparent about what is in place. There are data protection and privacy notice statements on the gov.scot website and they make it clear that we will share information. The website also includes mention of safeguarding, which clearly states that information will be shared in very specific circumstances when there are safeguarding concerns.

As all committee members will be aware, the sharing of information is an exceptionally sensitive matter, and a great deal of care must be taken to ensure that it is done lawfully. That is why those statements are made as people go through application processes. When it is not possible to ask a client for their consent for their information to be shared, the regulations still allow for that to happen. That is important because, as was mentioned in the discussion with Mr Doris, there may be coercion or other reasons why a client cannot give their consent at that time. We are still obliged to ensure that we share the information with all the care and sensitivity that the committee would expect the agency to show at that point.

Consent is not required where a person lacks capacity to act. An example that might be helpful is referrals to the Office of the Public Guardian where people are covered by the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000. As I mentioned, they cannot give consent.

I have probably touched on the other areas in previous answers. As I said, the regulations provide exemptions to allow for the sharing of information specifically where it is felt that there is “reasonable cause” to suspect that the individual is at risk of harm. That is the important aspect that we always come back to in this respect. I hope that that provides another example of how such a matter would be dealt with.

At present, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, concerns about risk of harm are referred to local authorities under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978. However, as I mentioned, that does not cover scenarios of financial harm or financial abuse, which is an important aspect of the system that we develop in the regulations. As well as filling those gaps, the regulations absolutely maintain our commitment to supporting some of the most vulnerable people we engage with. Although we have had an interim process in place, it is important that we set out our approach in a clear and transparent fashion.

Monitoring is extremely important, given the sensitivity of the information and the importance that the agency and the Government overall attach to ensuring that we deal with it sensitively, appropriately and thoroughly. A new system of records is being developed to record statistics. Given the sensitive nature of the information in question, it is not held in the main system for all staff to see; it is held in a sensitive way such that only the staff who are dealing with the issues in question will be able to see it. They will be able to monitor that and report up to the executive team as required.