Chamber and committees

Miles Briggs mentioned free school meals. We have prioritised the expansion of free school meals, which we see as vital support. The policy was expanded to include primary 4 and 5 pupils during 2021 and 2022, and it is supported in this financial year with £40.2 million of additional funding. We will work with local government and other partners on the delivery and implementation of the further expansion. There might be many criticisms in this area, but I am not sure that a fair one could be the provision of free school meals.

We are keen to work in partnership with local government on a new fiscal framework. We want to get the balance of flexibilities right, and we want much more discussion with Parliament on what that would look like. We are keen to take that forward, and we have started to have positive discussions with the new COSLA presidential team.

It is lucky that there were a couple of questions left that had not been asked.

You raise an important point. On digital exclusion, the Scottish Government is in the process of identifying priority groups to support over the next four years. Initially, that will focus on the six child poverty family types. The user research on the initial phases of the connecting Scotland programme will assist us in that approach. We are trying to ensure that the resources and support offered through the connecting Scotland programme reach those who need them most.

You are right to point out that, for a variety of reasons, the digital world is difficult for some people. It is important that there is a balance.

In the session earlier this morning, I mentioned that the new social security advocacy service, which was launched back in January, is supporting people with disabilities to access and apply for social security assistance, and offering space for face-to-face support to take people through the process, whether that is online or on paper. Most people now will access their support online, but it is important to have those other options of non-digital support. The work of the social security advocacy service will be very important in that space. I would be happy to furnish the committee with more details about that if that would be helpful.

It is important to note that, for 2022-23, the Scottish Government is investing more than £12 million to support advice services in the provision of free income maximisation and welfare and debt advice. At the same time, we would want to acknowledge that, like every other sector, the advice sector is under pressure due to the cost of living crisis and the impact of Covid, which is still being felt.

The cost of living crisis and the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling child poverty require a framework for Scottish Government-funded advice services that goes beyond debt advice to the provision of accessible holistic services that will help people to maximise their incomes and provide the support that they require. We are therefore committed to reviewing the way in which the Scottish Government funds advice, and we await advice on a refreshed approach later this year that will take account of, for example, the Improvement Service’s work on funding models for the debt advice levy and other models—for example, we are looking at the Welsh single advice fund.

We understand the pressures, and we are looking at how best we can address those. Funding is just one component of that. We are aware of the issues, and I put on record my thanks to the advice services for all the work that they are doing at this time.

That has to be part of the discussions with the third sector, which are not just about multiyear funding; they are also about some of the reviews and the way that we will deliver services. There are discussions to be had about ensuring that the third sector is working collaboratively and avoiding duplication. The multiyear funding discussions need to be part of that wider discussion with the third sector. We will continue those discussions with third sector representatives, and I would be happy to keep the committee apprised of how they are going.

We are already creating a fairer system of disability assistance in which the culture is one of encouraging people with disabilities to access their rights and entitlements by making significant improvements to the application and the decision-making processes.

I am sure that you will be aware of the new social security advocacy service, which was launched in January. It is doing a tremendous job in supporting people with disabilities to access and apply for Social Security Scotland assistance. The service proactively encourages people to apply.

As you will also know, the Scottish Fiscal Commission has forecast that more people will be eligible for ADP than for the personal independence payment. Also, awards are expected to be higher than PIP. That demonstrates the impact of those improvements in the here and now.

I will come on to the review, but it is important to note that what you have asked about is already the case because of a change in culture. By 2026-27, we expect to invest more than £500 million a year over and above the level of funding that we receive from the UK Government through the block grant adjustment.

On the independent review of ADP, I do not want to pre-empt its findings in relation to expectations around changes to how ADP is delivered. However, whatever comes out of that will be required to be resourced and we will need to manage that within our resources.

It is fair to say that—because of the Scottish Fiscal Commission projections and because it is the right thing to do—we have already prioritised spend for social security. Kate might want to say something about the fiscal framework and the need for that. I know, having sat on your predecessor committee previously, that we spent a lot of time interrogating the fiscal framework and its detail. However, because of its restriction on borrowing, our ability to increase the size of the cake is very restricted. I will not get into the detail because Kate knows it far better than I do.

We have a commitment around increasing the trajectory of spend on social security—we have prioritised that in the resource spending review. However, it would be extremely helpful to us as a Government to have a more flexible framework.

I welcome the latest report from the JRF and Save the Children, and we continue to work with them and other key stakeholders to take forward our work on child poverty.

We have set out significant resources to deliver on the plan. As I said, the RSR allocates up to £300 million for tackling child poverty and social justice. It also commits more than £23 billion through social security payments in the next four years, with almost £1.8 billion for the Scottish child payment.

The report welcomes the plan. It states:

“the Plan is a strong diagnosis of the struggle that many families currently experiencing poverty face. In many respects the Plan also correctly identifies the areas where additional action is needed.”

The report welcomes—as those organisations did when the plan was published—the balance between putting money into people’s pockets, reducing costs and employability. We were advised to balance those three pillars within the plan.

As I said in my opening remarks, the modelling that we have done around the plan would, as I set out to Parliament, deliver a rate of 17 per cent of children living in relative poverty, which would meet the relative poverty target. The JRF and Save the Children have said that they used a different system of modelling to reach their conclusions. I can bring in Julie Humphreys if the committee wants to know more about the differences in the modelling, as that is a different modelling system.

The absolute child poverty target is extremely difficult to meet in times of rising inflation because it is very much linked to inflation. It would be extremely difficult to chase that target by using the Scottish child payment, for example. The modelling that we did showed that, at that point, we would have needed to set a Scottish child payment at around £55 per week per child in order to chase that target, because it is linked so much to inflation. That figure would be even higher now, as the rate of inflation has gone up since the plan was published.

I am afraid that that is not a sustainable position. That is why the other things that we are doing, such as mitigating the benefit cap and providing all the other supports, are an attempt to tackle and target the poorest families. That approach is more likely to produce a shift with regard to the absolute poverty target.

I do not underestimate the challenge here, and we welcome the scrutiny from organisations that are dedicated to this work. We have said on a number of occasions that we will keep the Scottish child payment under review. I know that the organisations concerned had asked for a Scottish child payment of £40 by the end of the current session of Parliament. Of course, we will keep the Scottish child payment under review, but we have to balance it with the other elements such as employability to ensure that we encourage people to take up fair work opportunities where they can and remove the barriers to enable them to do so.

The resource spending review was an opportunity to interrogate areas of spend. The affordable housing supply programme is a key lever in addressing poverty, including child poverty, which is why we are investing £3.6 billion.

We have discussed on a number of occasions the challenges of temporary accommodation. We are working with local government on reducing the need for and use of temporary accommodation. Its funding has been discussed with local government on a number of occasions. I remember that the committee was looking at the cost of temporary accommodation, particularly for those who are in work, and the challenges that that brings. However, that is primarily a local government issue, and there is a reliance on housing benefit revenues in funding that.

In the interests of time, I will be happy to come back with a bit more detail on the work that we are doing on temporary accommodation.

That is really important. I think that I am aware of the case that Paul McLennan has mentioned, which was a powerful testimony.

The key thing is the 200 community link workers located in general practices across Scotland, which we have funded through the primary care improvement fund. They are now a well-established component of multidisciplinary teams in primary care. Someone may present to their GP with stress or other mental health issues, but worries about money and debt may underlie that. The ability to signpost people in the here and now just along the corridor to someone who can help them to look at the money situation, entitlements and options around debt management is very important. That is the value of the community link workers, and you can multiply that testimony many times.

The experiences and insights of the community link workers are crucial in helping us to plan future policy. The Scottish Government has commissioned Voluntary Health Scotland to develop a new national network and community of practice for community link workers so that we can build on that expertise. They do a crucial job.

As the First Minister said recently, we know how much importance the third sector places on multiyear funding settlements, and we will continue to work with the sector on the issue of fair and stable funding and try to move to multiyear funding where possible. That is very much in line with the discussions that we have been having with third sector organisations, which want to move to multiyear funding, of course.

One of the constraints on the Government is that we have not had multiyear funding. However, through the resource spending review, we have had the opportunity to set out our funding priorities, and tackling poverty—child poverty in particular—is clearly one of the key priorities.

The short answer is that that is very much on the table.

I will kick off. Key for me is the balance of spend in the tackling child poverty delivery plan. Pam Duncan-Glancy knows that, when I set out the plan to Parliament, I made it clear that, as well as the support that is provided by putting money in people’s pockets here and now—primarily through the Scottish child payment—it was really important to tackle the root causes of poverty, which we know are many and complex.

Supporting parents into employment is a key aspect of the plan. It is clear that traditional employability supports were missing a whole cohort of parents, for reasons that we could probably spend the whole day talking about. The doors to traditional employability programmes were either not known to parents who were struggling or were not offering attractive enough support.

We set out our ambitions to change that and to look at more bespoke support for parents moving into employment by tackling issues, such as childcare, that are barriers to getting parents into employment. We set out a significant investment in employability programmes that are targeted at parents and that try to move them into employment. We know that that is the best way out of poverty. We have a target of supporting 12,000 parents into employment over the course of the plan. That will make a big change to structural inequalities and to poverty in families.

Kate Forbes might want to speak in more detail about employability.