Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am content with that answer, Mr Wallace. An efficient organisation is not always the same as an organisation that makes financial savings. If you run an efficient organisation, it costs what it costs. I totally accept that as an answer.

My final question is about the completion of case transfer. Does that free up resource? If so, how does that get directed? Does it feed back into processing times and call waiting times? Can you say a bit about that? I have had more than a fair share of time, so I ask for a brief answer so that we can put something on the record, please.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. I will focus a wee bit on processing times for applications and call waiting times. I will pick on adult disability payments, because they have been the most challenging within the organisation. It would appear from the figures that I am looking at that call waiting times and processing times are nudging up again. I know that you will tell me that they are still much lower in comparison with the peak, when things were not going so well, but they are nudging up again. Can you explain to me why they are starting to nudge up again?

I appreciate that answer. I do not think that you want to be drawn into a discussion about mean, mode and median—I feel like I am back at school—but, obviously, at different times of the year, there will be waits that are average and waits that are longer. Putting all that to one side for a moment, I imagine that the organisation plans for surge demand. You used the word “seasonal”. Is there a surge demand strategy? I am not asking you to give it to me in detail this morning, but I would like an assurance that there is a strategy. If so, does it need to be reviewed? A surge demand strategy should mean that you can cope without waiting times going up.

I will roll that into my next question. My understanding is that everything is linked, because the same person who is answering the phones is dealing with casework. If someone spends more time answering phones, processing times may go up because they will also deal with cases. I seek some reassurance that the organisation is dealing with surge demand as work in progress and that it can flex during times of seasonal demand, rather than committee members such as myself asking why demand is going up.

I accept all that. I do not want to sound curmudgeonly, but I am not asking you to speculate; I am asking you to analyse and understand the figures and then take appropriate steps in the organisation. Thirty-five per cent is perhaps the right rate, but if it is not, we need to address what is going on in the system. We are at the tail-end of this parliamentary session, but a future committee will want to better understand those numbers, not quite in real time but in a structured way.

You told the Finance and Public Administration Committee in June that you were satisfied with the quality of ADP reviews. The SPICe briefing says that 5 per cent of the cases that are reviewed lead to a lower award or to no award, compared with 13 per cent for the DWP’s PIP. ADP appears to be more favourable in that respect, but does that mean that there is little scope for financial savings in that area? In other words, is that as lean as it can possibly be, or can we do better?

I suppose that I mean guidance for everyone, but I will leave that to the minister and his team. I am asking what the thoughts are currently on guidance.

Will there be associated guidance, or will the code stand alone?

Minister, you talked about bringing the code back to the committee. I am content today to give the Scottish Government the power, via Transport Scotland, to withdraw that entitlement to travel—in certain circumstances, where that power is contextualised and appropriate. What we are debating today is the process around how that power will be used and how it will be proportionate. You mentioned bringing the code back to the committee. Would the committee have a further vote on whether to approve that code or otherwise? That might determine how I view today’s evidence session.

If there is time, I might come back in later, but I think that I have had a fair crack of the whip for the moment.

We are almost violently agreeing on the principle here—we are trying to get the detail right and give the committee confidence. It will be difficult for the Government to do that.

Mr Stewart made a very reasonable point but, within it, he said something that I disagreed with in relation to the code of conduct needing to be explicit. In previous exchanges, I wrote down the word “context”. I go back to Mr Ruskell’s point—Mr Ruskell asked about the example of a person with headphones on. You cannot possibly answer that question, minister, because context is everything. FirstBus’s conditions of carriage state that it is a breach of those conditions to

“play or operate any musical equipment or instruments (including radios, mobile phones, MP3 devices etc) on vehicles at a volume that is likely to cause annoyance to other Customers”.

Are bus companies enforcing that just now? Possibly, but probably not. That is due to driver safety as much as anything else, I suspect. So, the word “explicit” gives me a bit of nervousness when context is everything.

Let me give another example. Mr Ruskell talked about life experiences and I was personally involved in such a situation the other day. He was talking about disabled people and some of the issues that they have in accessing a bus—whether there is space for someone with a wheelchair and, sometimes, for a personal assistant to help them to get on the bus. The other day, I got on the bus with my children’s two scooters, one of which was foldable and the other of which was not, although it was smaller. I got on the bus fine on the way out to a skate park; on the way back, the driver politely and professionally challenged me about whether I could take that larger scooter on the bus. Being a geek, I knew the conditions of carriage: I could do so at the driver’s discretion. On the way to the skate park, the driver gave me permission at his discretion to get on the bus with both scooters, but perhaps, on the way back, a different driver would not use that discretion, leaving me and my family unable to get home.

The driver was very professional when he let me on the bus, so why do I make that rather trivial point? It is because context is everything. I want to see a code of conduct with broad brushstroke principles and, perhaps, underpinning guidance that allows contextualised decisions to be taken by Transport Scotland.

There is a question in there, which is: should the code be explicit, should it have broad principles, and how does context come into all of that and into the decision making?