Chamber and committees

The committee will see that a lot of the legislation has been drafted as a mirror image of the legislation that created SCOSS. A lot of the membership criteria are the same—off the top of my head, I think that those are in section 97 of the bill that set up SCOSS. There is a mirror image of a lot of the membership requirements. Given the strength of SCOSS and its expertise and experience, I hope that the Government will appreciate that a lot of similar expertise and experience will be recruited into the SEIAC membership.

The bill also mirrors the current situation whereby, at the UK level, IIAC scrutinises regulations on industrial injuries and disability benefit and the Social Security Advisory Committee does so for all other social security regulations.

It is a mirror of what is in place at the UK level.

The estimates in the financial memorandum are just that: financial estimates. They are based on bodies of a similar size and nature that have been created. Indeed, the detailed work that we have done on the IT costs is based on similar set-up costs for the patient safety commissioner for Scotland.

I think that the figures stand up. There has been an element of confusion—if I can call it that—about the IT set-up costs in the previous evidence sessions; we are not talking about the IT set-up costs for the benefit itself or for the costs for transferring paper and microfiche from huge warehouses down south to up here. Instead, we are purely talking about the IT set-up costs for a very small body, with, as I have set out, three or four members of staff. Therefore, when it comes to the IT set-up costs, I think that, when we look at comparators such as other bodies of a similar size, we will see that the estimates are absolutely robust. I would stand by them.

Research is a different area, but, again, we have provided three separate examples of the costs of research done by other similar bodies. Having just checked the financial memorandum, I would point out that it says specifically:

“The nature and length of research commissioned would be a matter for the Council, so it could vary significantly.”

I appreciate that we have given three examples—and the figure of £30,000 is closely related to the three examples that we have given—but, as the council is set up and sets its own work plan, that figure “could vary significantly”, as the financial memorandum says.

It was good to hear the cabinet secretary say last week that the £30,000 figure is perhaps too low, because it seems as though the Government is open to the negotiation that would inevitably take place. The council would independently set its work and research plans and then negotiate its budget with Government. It is likely that that is where we would end up, but, as I have said, it was good to hear that the Government seems to be open to having that discussion about what it would view as an adequate and realistic research budget. We have sourced and referenced the costs of similar bodies, but we have also clearly caveated that by saying that the costs “could vary significantly”.

As I said, under the bill, the council would have a membership of between six and 12 people. The current UK advisory council has 17 members, so the proposed council would potentially be two thirds the size of the UK advisory council. However, we would not expect every single category in the membership conditions to be met by a single individual—there would be crossover, and there would be people with a range of skills and multiple areas of expertise.

A council of 12 could comfortably meet the membership conditions. Going beyond that number would potentially be overcostly, given the proportion of benefit spend that the council would be scrutinising. With a bigger membership, the costs could potentially run a bit higher than we would want.

What you describe is possible but not preferable, because it would not be independent of Government. Some of the advisers that could potentially be recruited to such an advisory group would be employed by the public sector and not directly, but indirectly, by the Government.

It is much more preferable to have an independent body set up by statute that has no fear or favour and that can make recommendations on that basis, and that cannot be disbanded at the whims of Government if the Government does not like the answers that it gets.

It is also the case that there has been nothing preventing the Government from having that in place for the past four years. It seems a bit strange that the Government is only now coming forward with a proposal for a potential working group at the point of the introduction of a member’s bill in a similar area.

I heard the cabinet secretary’s comments about the Scottish child payment. However, since the introduction of the Scottish child payment—from the very first announcement—the consultation on employment injury assistance has been promised almost on an annual basis.

The work on the Scottish child payment has not come out of the blue. The Government has known about it and the work on it has been on-going, but the Government has still continued to promise, almost annually, to start the consultation. It is not as though the Government promised that the consultation would arrive before the Scottish child payment and then had to push everything back; it has still promised the consultation almost annually while the Scottish child payment has been being developed and put in place.

The landscape of public bodies changes almost annually and with every Government, so we have put regulation-making powers in the bill to allow ministers to designate additional bodies as they are created.

No, but SCOSS makes recommendations on social security provisions and it is for the Government to decide whether to accept them on the basis of costs. You will be aware that SCOSS has made recommendations that the Government has refused to action on the basis of costs.

Further, there is already headroom in the budget. The Scottish Fiscal Commission has said that the budget is likely to fall from £78 million to £74 million, if I remember rightly. That is because of the current system and the way in which it is set up. As I said, in essence, the industrial injuries disablement scheme supports men who worked in heavy industry in the 1960s and 1970s. As those men are, sadly, passing away, entitlement is dropping off, and the budget is falling, year on year, because of that. As we have not updated the list of prescription or entitlement, that will not change and the budget will continue to fall.

To my mind, there is already headroom in the budget to make changes. However, as I said, it would not be for the council to decide on Government budgeting. It has no role in setting the Government’s annual budget. The Government of the day will make decisions based on the argument that the council makes and based on political pressure. When it comes to budget day, every single year, trade unions and other campaigning organisations will apply pressure that their priorities should be reflected over any others. It will be for the Government of the day to decide. The council cannot tie the hands of whichever Government is in office when it comes to setting its budget.

It is key that the council is set up through primary legislation that this Parliament passes, because that will protect its status. Even if the council makes a recommendation that a Government of whatever colour strongly disagrees with, it will not be at risk of being disbanded. A working group that is set up by Government can be disbanded just as easily as it was created. We have seen working groups set up and disbanded without their recommendations being implemented. It is crucial that we set out clearly in statute that the body will be independent of Government, and also the membership requirements of the body, so that it is not subject to change at the whim of Government and it cannot just be ignored.

We also need to consider who will be on the body. It is likely to include some public sector workers, some of whom will be employed directly or indirectly by Government. If the body is a Government working group, they might feel that they are curtailed by their employment status. It is important to give them the protection that will be afforded by the body’s independence if it is a statutory body this is created by Parliament through legislation.

I am going only on the agency agreements that are in place between the Government and the DWP and on the DWP’s assertion that it would not countenance a further delay, which the Government was looking for. In essence, the 2026 deadline is a hard deadline, which the DWP does not have the capacity to go beyond.

I was talking about prescription. If the council made a recommendation on prescribing certain illnesses or injuries in certain occupations and the Government decided to accept that recommendation and implement it, which then led to a bigger call on the budget, the Government might look at that and consider that there was a bit of preventative work to do in, say, the fire service, the health service or whichever area the spend had been driven by.