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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 5 July 2025
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Displaying 1311 contributions

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Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Third Sector Recovery

Meeting date: 9 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

That is helpful. I am very conscious of time, so I ask for brief answers to my next question. The issue of your organisations’ relationship with OSCR and the reform of charity law is likely to come up within the next five years. Are there changes that you would like to be made? Is the system overly bureaucratic, in relation to the number of forms that you have to fill in, or is it about right?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Social Security Scotland

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

I have two questions. First, following up on that final point, Audit Scotland reported that recruiting people with clinical experience was a cause for particular concern and that the pandemic may have made that worse. Are you looking at different opportunities, such as working part time or even working through an agency, so that a person might do one day a week for you but continue working as a nurse or occupational therapist the rest of the time? Or is it just one model fits all?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Social Security Scotland

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

Secondly, and this is probably a slightly longer question, the adult disability payment is coming in next year. We have seen the draft regulations. Whether the regulations are agreed to or altered will be a political decision made by the Parliament. If the Parliament decided that everybody should be transferred as is, and then decided to increase the mobility threshold from 20m to 50m and that came in next year, would the agency have the capacity to deliver that decision, or would you need more staff? If the regulations were not just approved but altered to give more people the opportunity to apply, could you deliver that? If you could not, by when would you need that parliamentary decision to be made, so that you could bring in more staff?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

That is good to hear. You might want to answer my second question in writing rather than answer it today. It concerns something that occurred to me while I was listening to you.

One of the issues that was put to us when we were examining the carers allowance was that there may well be two people caring for a parent or for a child but that the benefit is delivered on a first-come, first-served basis, which is the same in relation to the Scottish child payment. Have you considered that you might end up with two people offering the same care but only one getting the benefit, because they applied before the other one? Has there been any evidence taken on that, has it been an issue and is it something that you and your officials have been looking at in any context at all? I appreciate that that is coming out of left field, so I am happy if you would rather take it away and respond in writing.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Social Security Scotland

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

I will be brief, because I am conscious of the time. I once had a case where someone was due £1,000 and got £110,000 and never declared it. However, we will move on.

There is one thing that has been a difficulty for the DWP under the present system. Every year, people get their annual letter that says, in about paragraph 4, “If your circumstances have changed, you need to let us know.” I suspect that most people, including me, never read that line. However, people’s circumstances change and they need more or less benefit. I am not convinced by the use of one line in an annual letter. Will the new agency communicate more effectively, perhaps, with people who are being transferred from the personal independence payment and whose circumstances may get worse or better? How will that be communicated to them in perhaps a more enlightening way?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Social Security Scotland

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

It would very helpful if we could get some kind of indication in writing.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

I have two questions, the first of which is procedural. We have touched previously on the time that SCOSS gets to respond. It pointed out in its report that it had a restricted time to get the response done. Are you looking at giving it a longer period of time to consider the recommendations, so that the committee and the Parliament can take that into account?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Social Security Scotland

Meeting date: 2 December 2021

Jeremy Balfour

It is good to see you all here. I will move on to overpayments. We all know that they happen irregularly, but they do happen. When I was a tribunal member, we had to hear some of those cases. It will probably become more of a live issue next year, when adult benefits are transferred. Clearly, we want to keep the founding principles of dignity, respect and so on; at the same time, there are people out there who make fraudulent claims. How will such issues be investigated? What methodology will you use to deal with them?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Proposed Fuel Poverty Strategy

Meeting date: 25 November 2021

Jeremy Balfour

I have a couple of questions. First, what difference do the witnesses think that it would make if the Scottish Government amended the forthcoming adult disability payment to ensure that those who receive the enhanced daily living component are able to claim the winter heating assistance payment? This has been picked up on already, but would that target funds in a better way than is being done at the moment? That question might be best for CAS.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Benefit Take-up Strategy

Meeting date: 11 November 2021

Jeremy Balfour

May I come back to a point that my colleague Miles Briggs made about the funeral support payment? I should declare that I am the convener of the cross-party group on funerals and bereavement. In my initial conversations with funeral directors, they were very positive about filling out the form for the payment and they felt that the process was working well. Again, the 59 per cent take-up rate for the funeral support payment surprises me. What are we going to do to get to the other 41 per cent who have not taken up that payment? I appreciate that some people have organised their own funerals and will not fall into that category, but I do not think that the percentage will be that high. I might have missed this, minister—I apologise if so—but what are we going to do about that? Is there a geographical breakdown of that data? Is it more likely that people in central Scotland are claiming compared with people in the Borders or the Highlands? Is that data being recorded by Social Security Scotland and, if so, could we see a breakdown of those figures?