Chamber and committees

Kevin Stewart, would you like to ask a question?

We will come to the City of Edinburgh Council first. In replying to Mr Smyth’s question, could you address how you would deal with a debtor who had mental health problems at the moment?

Thank you. I recognise that the report made a point of saying that it is not a rear-view mirror—it is not an appraisal of past performance—but you mentioned significant critiques of the system and a real need for cultural reform and big structural reform. Are those reforms overdue? Has there been a lack of direction and leadership from the Government or other agencies? It is a critical report and the structural reforms that are outlined are fairly significant. Are those overdue? Has there been a lack of attention from the Government in those areas?

Would local authorities tend to put in a lot of requests at the same time? The banks spoke about the volume of work that that would create because they get bulk applications.

That is helpful. As a supplementary question to that, is going through a collection agency a successful process? If you are dealing with people who have resources in the bank, is it a useful tool?

I think that the proposal is that someone would have to be in receipt of treatment. That is why the choice is whether to restrict access to the moratorium, because of the difficulty of defining who should get it.

Roderick Macpherson, do you want to add anything?

Thank you very much to the witnesses. I will briefly suspend the meeting while we change over the panel.

Our next item of business is an evidence session on the independent review of the skills delivery landscape report by James Withers. I welcome James Withers to the committee. I would be grateful if members and the witness could be as concise as possible with questions and answers.

The report was published in June. How do you feel about the Government’s response to the report and will you update us on whether there were any discussions with the Government over the summer about implementation?

Good morning and welcome to the 24th meeting in 2023 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business this morning is to decide whether to take items 5, 6 and 8 in private. Are members content to takes those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We now move to our next item of business. This is our third evidence session on the Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Bill. Today, we will hear from creditors. I welcome Andrew Fraser, president, and Roderick Macpherson, honorary secretary, at the Society of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers; and Cheryl Hynd, council revenues manager, and Elizabeth McCrossan, senior transactions officer, at the City of Edinburgh Council. Questions will be directed to your organisations, so it would be helpful if you could decide among yourselves who will answer.

I will start. One of the proposals in the bill is to require banks and others who are subject to an arrestment request to provide information about why arrestment has been unsuccessful. We have heard some evidence from banks that that would be too onerous a duty to place on them. If there was a requirement for banks to share such information, would that be helpful? I put that to the City of Edinburgh Council first.