Chamber and committees

My final point is on the issue that you have just raised. You are right that procurement law can be used to promote the real living wage and flexibility. Last week, the Scottish Trades Union Congress called for employment law to be devolved. Would not it be easier if we had the powers to do something about these issues, rather than playing about with procurement regulations?

Are there on-going information technology problems?

What about duplicate profiles?

Thanks very much.

Good morning. I want to ask about getting supporting information from third parties. David Wallace mentioned schools, and you clearly have to get information from health boards, local authorities, general practitioners and, maybe, third sector organisations. The Scottish Commission on Social Security said:

“Eliciting timely and detailed supporting information from busy professionals, which is focused on daily living and mobility activities, will be challenging.”

What steps are you trying to take to smooth that process and reduce processing times by getting information in a more timely manner from those third-party organisations?

We have touched on processing times. Once you get that supporting information, and it is complete, what is the delay between having the information and making a decision on an individual’s case? How long is that period, on average?

Yes.

I mean in processing cases.

That is an issue for the individual who cannot get a decision because there is a duplicate profile. An IT fix needs to be done to merge the two profiles so that a decision maker can make a decision. They cannot make a decision until the two profiles are merged. The information that we had on a particular case—it is now resolved, thankfully, but it took five months—was that there was an IT issue.

Okay.