Chamber and committees

I appreciate that you might not want to give the answer today, but will you write to the committee? I appreciate that I have been on the committee a fairly short time in comparison with other members, but I am genuinely confused about what other processes you are talking about. If you cannot outline them today, will you write to the committee so that we have the information?

I absolutely accept that you have an open-door policy, but you have not fundamentally answered the question. When it comes to that final decision, Parliament has no option to amend those regulations. We either have to accept or reject them. Why could that work not be done with primary legislation? Along with ministers, MSPs could listen to stakeholders and come to a view. Do you not accept that you are keeping MSPs away from the process of being able to amend things that will affect all of our constituents across Scotland?

I will move on to a couple of specifics in the bill. Section 15 is about the complaints process. Why is it considered appropriate for the Scottish ministers to rely on, as described in your response, a veto for the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and not the Parliament? Why are we again taking away the power of the Parliament?

I said that we deal with regulations only by voting for or against them; they cannot be amended. You said that there were other processes that committees can use to deal with them, and I was looking for clarification of the other methods that this committee and other committees can use, apart from voting for or against regulations.

Good morning, panel, and thank you for coming to the meeting.

It may be too early to ask about this, but one of the forecasts that you or your predecessor made was that there would be a higher uptake of ADP compared with PIP. I think that the Scottish Government has budgeted on that, because the system is meant to be kinder, fairer and smoother. Are we seeing that trend—more uptake of ADP compared with applications for PIP at the DWP—or is it too early for that trend to show yet?

One of the changes that was meant to happen under this scheme was that you would look for the information the first time around. Clearly, that is not happening. What training is now being given so that it is not the claimant providing that information but you finding the information to get it right? The application form and the way that people make an application is different, but the criteria for CDP have not changed at all. It is a new system but they are not new criteria—people are still getting an award on the same criteria. Again, has the training not been there? Why have they not gone for that information the first time around?

My final question around this is a parochial one concerning the Lothians. The figures show that 55 people have been transferred from PIP to the new ADP—I am not one of those 55. Is that the speed of the process you expect? It seems quite slow. Do you have at least a working idea of when the full transfer will take place? Are you reaching the targets that you already had? Are you confident that everybody who is now on PIP will be transferred to ADP on the timescales that we discussed previously?

That is helpful. I was about to ask roughly when we should look for that. Will we be able to do some analysis to say that, if we still had the DWP PIP scheme, we would reckon that X number would have got awards but, because there are ADPs, the number is higher or lower than that? Will you be able to do that, or will that be too difficult to dig down into?

On a similar theme, on page 91 of your report, you state:

“We are concerned that the CDP data dissemination issues will carry over to adult disability payment ... statistics.”

What conversations have you had with Social Security Scotland in that regard? How reassured are you? Obviously, Social Security Scotland will be giving evidence later this morning. Should we pursue that issue, or are you content with what you are hoping to get?

I have a couple of questions. One of the measures in the charter is the percentage of applications processed within 10 working days. In 2021-22, the majority of claims were not processed in that timeframe. Why is that the case? Do you hope to do better next year? If so, what target are you looking to set yourselves for the coming year?