Chamber and committees

We would be delighted to take up that suggestion. Anything that we can do with any stakeholder or interested party to assist in uptake would be greatly welcome, so I am happy to follow that up with Ms McNair after the meeting.

The disability benefits that we have exist to ensure that we support people who have long-term disabilities or health conditions and the qualifying periods exist to ensure that assistance is targeted at such people. We have the qualifying periods because, if we did not, we could get into a situation where people who have short-term conditions would be eligible and would receive assistance for short periods. That is not the way that the current DWP system is set up, and it is one aspect that we feel it was right to transfer over to ensure that we focus our support on those who have long-term disabilities or health conditions.

I point out that, although there is a longer qualifying period for PADP than for child disability payment and adult disability payment, that goes hand in hand with the fact that there is no qualifying period into the future, as there is with CDP and ADP. That is one of the reasons why we have the slight difference in approach.

I come back to the question whether any change in the system would impact on the DWP’s current position to ensure automatic passporting. If we had a shorter qualifying period, would that run into difficulty? That has not been tested, but I raise it as a concern that we have in our minds, particularly as we go through case transfer, to ensure that people who are applying for the benefits have the same rules and that there is, therefore, no danger of getting into that difficulty with the DWP.

We need to look at eligibility. There is no mobility component to the pension age disability payment, so it is challenging to see how local authorities could determine whether an individual’s mobility needs satisfied the blue badge criteria based on the PADP award. That is the same for attendance allowance. That is the reason why there is not an automatic entitlement process.

In a recent meeting with Age Scotland, which I mentioned earlier, we discussed the blue badge scheme and whether more could be done to assist people through increasing knowledge of the scheme and the fact that, although there is not an automatic entitlement, it is still available for them to apply to. The agency will look at the award letter that comes through after someone gets PADP to ensure that it signposts them to information on the blue badge scheme and how an individual could apply to it.

Although entitlement is not automatic, because there is no mobility component to the benefit, the agency will look at what it can do after an award to signpost people to the blue badge scheme. I am happy to carry on that conversation with stakeholders to consider whether more can be done to ease that process. As we have discussed in committee before, I am keen on the automation of benefits and moving people along as fast as possible. If that is not appropriate in this case, which I do not believe it is, I am keen to carry on the conversation with them about what more we can do.

It is both, because of the point that Mr Doris rightly raised about some of it being passported to another part of the social security system up here and some of it being down to a reserved benefit. We were clear when we designed STA that it is not in itself a benefit. The question is for both Governments, but it is certainly one that the Scottish Government should be absolutely live to, given that we set up STA on a particular premise. There is a question for the UK Government, but I would not shirk our responsibility to consider that.

There certainly does not appear to be anything on the horizon that suggests to me that money will become available, although I am an optimist, as Mr Doris knows. If there is a change in Government at a UK level, I very much hope that it will not follow the financial constraints that the Conservative Government has set, that it will have a better working relationship with the Scottish Government and that we can take forward such discussions.

Mr Doris made one suggestion. I have a feeling that, if I was here discussing carer support payment, committee members would suggest ways in which we could spend that money on carer support, because there are—rightly—calls from carers organisations to do more on that. Mr Doris is quite right. That is certainly something that could be considered in the future. The financial situation for the Scottish Government would need to be substantially different, given the sheer scale of the mobility component. In such a case, I would then wish to consider, in discussion with the committee and stakeholders, how that money could be spent.

As, I am sure, the committee will appreciate, there is a long list of things that people would wish me to do, and, indeed, that I would wish to do myself if the money became available.

All the agency’s forms have been co-designed with people who would be applying. I remember going along to the process for best start grants way back in the day—we literally sat with women taking application forms apart and changing them. That was a process of continual drafting and redrafting to ensure that the form was fit for purpose. We still need to learn once a form goes live—we have made changes at that stage—but I can give that reassurance on how the forms are designed.

We have not concentrated on the length of the form; we have worked more on its usability. I appreciate that I am not answering Mr O’Kane’s question directly, but I can explain why. Through the co-design process, we have been asked to make the questions clearer and more spaced out, with examples given. We have also added images to the form, because people have told us that that makes it easier to complete.

The form is still being formatted. That work is not complete yet, but that is the type of process that we have been through before. In essence, the form may end up longer, but that is because it has been designed by the people who will be using it. They wanted it to be more spaced out, they wanted examples to be given and they wanted images to be put in, all in order to make it easier to use. We have been concerned with usability rather than length, although we keep the length in mind as we go through the process.

One caveat that I will give is that, when somebody applies online, they get only the questions that relate to them. If some answers suggest that another part of the form does not relate to them, they do not have to go through that part of the form.

The form is a work in progress, and we will be happy to share it with the committee once it is complete.

It is important that the committee is reassured that the agency has undertaken a great deal of work to improve processing times. I keep an extremely close eye on those and am in close dialogue with the agency on that subject. I welcome the changes that it has made to its processing to ensure that it is done more quickly.

I hope that the committee members who went to Agnes Husband house saw that happening in real time and heard discussed in greater detail the amount of changes that have been made and continue to be made. The capacity is very much there. The lessons have been learned and continue to be so. I am sure that the agency would be more than happy to host the committee again in the future, to talk through the further work that is being done on processing times or anything else, or when we get to the point of PADP being live. Perhaps not in the first week, though—I will allow them some time for that.

This is one of the areas that are brand new to Scotland and of which we are proud. I am therefore keen to ensure that it is working effectively. If there are differences of opinion on usability, we are keen to hear them, because the system is still quite new.

Short-term assistance is not designed to replace disability benefits; it is there as a temporary payment to assist someone who is challenging a determination to reduce or cease their entitlement to a disability benefit. The intention when STA was being designed was to ensure that no one was discouraged from challenging a determination by the idea of having to manage for a period with a reduced income.

Short-term assistance does not interact with the backdating of reserved benefits. If someone is successful in having their decision changed at redetermination or appeal, that does not affect that backdating. However, I appreciate that people want us to look at that issue and to have discussions about it, and I am happy to carry on that dialogue to ensure that people feel that the system is being used as intended, or that, if there are lessons to be learned, we can learn them.

If Mr Doris is content for me to do so, I will be happy to get back to him further in writing about passporting benefits and short-term assistance in particular.

I agree that short-term assistance is unique to Scotland. The intention behind it is to ensure that no one is discouraged from challenging a decision. However, it is not in itself an award of a benefit, so there is a difference there. There is a nuance of approach between what happens when someone receives short-term assistance and what happens when they receive a benefit. I will be happy to provide that information in writing, in particular on the carers element, as I appreciate that Mr Doris is talking about passporting to another part of the devolved system—not passporting to the reserved system. I can provide more detail in writing about how that would work and talk the committee through that process.

I would like to make brief opening remarks, if I may. As we are all aware and as we have discussed previously, the bill seeks to remove the section 2 definition of “woman” from the original Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. That follows the decisions of the inner house of the Court of Session, which were effective from 19 April 2022. The court decided that the section 2 definition was outwith the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament and was not law and, accordingly, had no legal effect. At that time, our counsel told the court that we would remove the redundant definition. If the bill is passed, it will provide clarity by removing that redundant definition from the statute book.

I appreciate that introducing a small bill is unusual. As we have discussed previously, we looked to see whether the bill could be attached to planned legislation, but there was not a suitable vehicle. In addition, the change has to be made through primary legislation.

The bill is simply to clear up the statute book to ensure that it is not misleading. Removing the definition from the statute book will eliminate the possibility of any confusion for readers of the 2018 act who are unaware of the court’s orders made in 2022.

I was pleased to read the committee’s stage 1 report on the bill and that you were satisfied that it is a small, technical fix to clear up the statute book. We are content to recommend that the Parliament agrees to the general principles.