Chamber and committees

That is an important issue, and when I answered the question earlier about the money and mental health toolkit, I said that it is very much on people’s minds. People who work in health understand the relationship between money worries and mental health. The toolkit will be important, and the support that is being rolled out, including link workers providing front-line support, social prescribing and signposting, is critical and will be even more critical in future.

As I said, the connecting Scotland programme is looking at identifying priority groups to support during the next four years, and it is likely to focus on the six child poverty family types. That chimes with the child poverty delivery plan. The research undertaken by the connecting Scotland programme is on what will help the most, whether it is about devices and being able to use them or whether it is about connectivity issues. That research will be important in ensuring that the next phase of work through connecting Scotland helps those who need it most. I am happy to ensure that the connecting Scotland team keeps the committee appraised of that work.

I do not know whether that has been done. We can follow up on that and check whether that discussion has taken place in respect of debt advice.

Perhaps we could pick the matter up with COSLA and discuss whether there are ways that we could work together to promote information. I know that that is a bit different from writing to individuals, but there might be complexities around doing that that would generate numerous letters weekly. That might be difficult for people, rather than helpful. However, I take the point about making sure that we provide clear information to people in case they are slipping through the net. As Robin Haynes said, it is not in any local authority’s interest not to ensure that people are aware of the council tax reduction scheme.

If there is more that we can do to promote information and clarity, I am happy to pick that up and discuss it with COSLA.

I do not have that information to hand but we could certainly furnish the committee with it as a follow-up, if that would be okay.

The first point to make it that a welfare system would never be designed to be delivered by two different Governments in two different ways, as that will never be the best system; it makes action and interface difficult. The complexity around case transfer includes the need to reconcile systems, and that is before you get into the end-user experience of trying to navigate all that complexity and the fact that there are underlying entitlements; for example, universal is a trigger benefit for the Scottish child payment. If we were designing a system in Scotland for Scotland, we would do it differently and build a more coherent system. We would build on the dignity and fairness principles that are at the heart of Social Security Scotland.

That said, we are doing what we can on the package of five family benefits. It is worth reiterating that that is worth more than £10,000 by the time a family’s first child turns six. Nothing like that is available anywhere else in the UK. We are trying to use the system that we have to put money into people’s pockets.

The almost £3 billion is a range of supports that will contribute to mitigating the impact of the increased cost of living on households. It 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. We can certainly furnish the committee with the list of supports that it covers, but it will not surprise you to hear that it covers the doubling of the Scottish child payment and then its extension to £25, our five family benefits, the uprating by 6 per cent of our eight Scottish social security payments, the fuel insecurity fund, the carers allowance supplement, discretionary housing payments and support for free school meals. The list would probably take me too long to go through, but suffice it to say that all those things are areas that are really important at the moment to support low-income households. We believe that it provides a rounded package that is a considerable investment in supporting the cost of living.

As you know, we increased support for carers throughout the pandemic. As to whether we can go further than that, we have said that if further resource becomes available during this financial year carers will be a priority.

Since its launch in 2018, until the end of 2021, we invested £188 million in the carers allowance supplement, which has supported more than 126,000 carers. A carers allowance supplement payment worth £245.70 was paid on 10 June, and in addition, we are supporting young carers. However, as Pam Duncan-Glancy knows, we have said that should additional resources become available in this tight fiscal environment, carers are a priority.

The local government settlement overall is challenging. We have already set out clearly that we have prioritised social security spend. You have a pot of money and you cannot spend it twice. Having said that, it is worth reiterating that many of the measures to support people through the cost of living crisis, such as discretionary housing payments or the welfare fund, are routed through local government.

As, I am sure, Kate Forbes would hasten to add, additional money was added at stage 2 of the Budget (Scotland) Bill—£120 million—but final decisions on the annual local government settlement and the level of funding provided for policies such as early learning and childcare expansion are taken through the annual budget process. The RSR sets out the framework, but the budget sets out the actual money that will be allocated. That is the top-line answer to your question.

We currently invest more than £1 billion a year in delivering the 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare. That is a big commitment. As members will be aware, we committed in the programme for government to building a system of school-age childcare to support children and families and to developing a new offer for early learning and childcare for one and two-year-olds, starting with those who would benefit most from that. That very much links back to the child poverty plan by supporting those families who need it most.

That is a big financial commitment and a big priority, because we know, to go back to parental employability, that affordable childcare is key in that regard.

I hope that that answers your question.

We have not kept the modelling secret—it was laid out in a fully transparent way as part of the plan, so that everybody could see the modelling and the way in which it was used to get to the figure of 17 per cent. It was driven, by and large, by the increase in the Scottish child payment, which is going up to £25 by the end of this year. It was also supported by the work around parental employability and all the other areas that we are investing in. We are mitigating the benefit cap with up to £10 million of investment each year, which will help around 4,000 Scottish households—mainly single parents and those who are really struggling.

We are investing at least £500 million over this session of Parliament in the whole family wellbeing funding, to give families access to the help that they need, where and when they need it. Again, that is more bespoke support.

In addition, there are all the other aspects. As Kate Forbes rightly pointed out, it is not just for me and my portfolio interests to tackle child poverty; it is about early learning and childcare support, skills support and all the other elements across the Government that can help to support families and drive down poverty levels.

We will continue to look at what more we can do. Work to identify whether there are other levers that we need to use is going on across the Government as we speak, and we will remain open to that.