Chamber and committees

Thank you.

Just before Christmas, the committee took evidence from David Wallace of Social Security Scotland. One of the issues that came up was the processing time. The charter contains a 10-day processing time measure, which he said would be “incredibly challenging” to meet. It was clear that he felt that, moving forward, that would not be met consistently. This will feed into my final question in a moment. Are you going to look at that timescale? There is presumably no point in having a timescale that nobody is ever going to hit.

That would be helpful.

I suspect that I know the answer to this next question, but I will ask it anyway. There was quite a long debate when the Social Security (Scotland) Bill was going through Parliament on whether the charter should have statutory or legal authority. As a Parliament, we decided against that. Will the review look at that aspect to see whether the charter should be given some statutory context?

Cabinet secretary, you will appreciate that I have asked you and the finance secretary on a number of occasions about specific discussions that you have had with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations on three-year funding. I know from previous answers that you and your officials regularly meet the SCVO. Has three-year funding been discussed specifically with the SCVO? What on-going discussions with the organisation are planned on that issue?

I have a final question on this area. As you will be aware, the customer charter has to be renewed in January next year, and you will obviously go through a consultation process in that regard. Do you know when the committee will be able to scrutinise any alterations or changes to the charter before it is laid before Parliament? Will you give a guarantee that there will be an opportunity for the committee to take evidence on any such changes before that happens?

As you mentioned, voluntary organisations are funded not only through your budget but through budgets across different Government portfolios. What efforts are made across Government to adopt the fair funding practice that SCVO has outlined? Who co-ordinates that to ensure that organisations do not miss out on funding from one department because they already get money from another department? Is that co-ordinated by the finance team or within your department?

Good morning, minister, and happy new year to you and your team.

I will pick up on a point that has been made by my colleagues. As you know, this is the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, so we consider delegated powers. As you know, regulations cannot be altered—we can only vote for or against them. Therefore, if Parliament likes three quarters of what you have done but does not like the rest of it, we are left with the option of saying no completely or voting for something that we do not have confidence in. If MSPs cannot amend regulations, how does that give them democratic accountability?

I do not want to labour the point, but I think that you hit the nail on the head in your previous answer. No one here is at all critical of stakeholder engagement, consultation and co-design. I think that we all welcome it, and everyone thinks that that is a great way forward. However, as you said, the issue is that, ultimately, decisions will have to be made. You cannot let everybody have exactly what they want, because those things will conflict. The issue for the committee is why you think that, once you have done all that consultation, once you have had that open door and once you have all discussed the subject, it is appropriate for the Scottish Government to decide which view to take on board, rather than the Scottish Parliament doing the same listening exercise and then coming to a view.

I absolutely accept that, but the trouble is that we do not know what the complaints system will look like—we have no idea, because you have not had your co-design meetings. I do not understand why you could not have had them already or even have them now, come up with a scheme that has consensus among the stakeholders and put that in the bill.

As you pointed out, even with all your consultation, there will be people who are not happy with your final recommendation. I am still struggling to work out why that recommendation should not be in the bill so that MSPs can decide whether it will work. You seem to be asking us to accept that you will get it absolutely right.

I have a second question on that. In one of your previous answers to me, you mentioned that there are other ways in which the Parliament can deal with secondary legislation rather than just saying yes or no to it. I am not aware of them. Will you explain them further to me, please?