Chamber and committees

What did I say?

Witnesses—right.

Does either Mr Smith or Ms Henderson have any thoughts on what the Government or Social Security Scotland could do other than the proposed approach? Is there a better way of auditing?

I kind of agree with you. As I understand it, for auditing, on the whole, we do not always have to go to the customers. If we are auditing a shop, we do not speak to the customers; we audit what is in the shop.

Unless Ms Henderson wants to add anything, I will go back to Ms Andrews, who had another point.

That is me done, convener. Thank you.

I will ask about audit. The idea is that people can be required to give information and that there could be penalties if they do not provide the right information. The Government says that it has to get information so that it can establish estimates of error and fraud. Do the witnesses agree with the power to suspend a person’s benefit payments if they repeatedly fail to provide information to Social Security Scotland? I think that RNIB Scotland has views on that.

On that theme, if somebody’s eyesight has deteriorated, they might need more support than they did previously. Should support be provided in that situation in some way?

Ms Andrews, do you have any further thoughts on that point?

I will come back to you if you want.

Mr Faulds, do you want to come back in on what else we could do? I see that Mr Faulds is shaking his head. Does either of the ones in the room want to say what else the Government could do?

That is helpful. Mr Smith, do you have a view?

Yes, I will come to them. I will follow up with Mr Smith first and then come back to the people who are online.