Chamber and committees

Shona, I ask you the same question. You deal with smaller charities. Are you concerned about the administration costs?

My final question is to the whole panel. There will be a further review of charity law once the bill has been passed, but is there anything missing from the bill that you think should be in the bill? Is there anything that stands out that would make the life of your charity and your trustees easier?

I go back to Sarah Latto and Jason Henderson, because they deal with smaller charities. Should there be, as Steven Inglis has suggested, a financial target so that, if a charity does not have X amount of expenditure or turnover a year, it will have to do less than, say, the National Trust for Scotland or the Church of Scotland will have to do?

My final question is a throwaway one, but it might be quite an important one. If you could add one thing to the bill that is not in it, what would that be? If you do not want to answer that now, maybe you could write to us. I appreciate that I am asking you to think about that off the top of your head.

We have talked about what is in the bill. I think that we are all pretty comfortable with what is in there, provided that some modifications to it are made, but is there anything that you can think of that would, if only it were included in the bill, make the life of a volunteer or a trustee easier?

After we have heard from Jason Henderson, I will go to our online witnesses to find out what their thoughts are.

Good morning. I return to the questions that I asked the previous panel of witnesses. The three witnesses on this panel represent fairly large charities. Do you see additional costs coming from the proposals that are in the bill, or do they cover things that you are already doing?

That is fine.

My concern, minister, is that that could take months and we would then be in June or July. If you came to the view that you wanted to make the payments in November or December, that would give the DWP very little time to pass that information to you. Have you at least highlighted to the DWP the possibility that you might want to make the payment in this calendar year, and have you asked it by what date it would need to know? Hypothetically, if we wanted to make the payments at the end of November or the beginning of December, when would the DWP need to know that in order to be able to provide the information in time? Rather than you deciding in July that you want to make the payment in November and the DWP then saying that it is just not possible to provide the data quickly enough, do you have anything from the DWP saying that, if you want to make the payment in November, it needs to know that by whatever date?

Before I ask my question, can I declare an interest? I am on the higher rate of the personal independence payment, so I have a financial benefit from one of the benefits we are talking about.

I go back to your comment about the winter heating payment being reviewed. Clearly, the sooner information sharing between the Scottish Government and the DWP can happen, the better. How quickly will the review take place and how will it be reported?

That is all that I was looking for. I understand the legal point. I just wanted to know whether you are happy with that as it is.