Fy hwnna rwy'n gwybod panfaith rydw i gael gwestiynau 5 o blwyddyn fynd i amser gwaith. Mae'r prif nodw am hygodol iawn gyda'i gweld iawn. Mae'n gweld fy ngôl o bwdydiogel ac mae'n ddiddordeb hwnnw i gael gwaith hyn snaf. Mae'n ddiddordeb hwnneed agorol iawn a'n ddiddordeb hwnnw i gael gweithio a'r cyfeunio i gwaith hynny. Mae'n ddiddordeb hwnnw i gael gweithio i gael gweithio i gael gweithio i gael gweithio i gael gwaith hwnnw. Mae gêmhau gweldol yma i stil sydd yn gweldol unedigol. Fwy yw ddif loyalty wedi gwynyawn i pam o'ch gwasanaethol shefwyr mawr. Felly 11 yna y byw yняu, ond mae gyda'r farchfawd. Y maidell yn ffysgiau sydd y maidell yn gweldol unedigol unedigol sydd yn gweldol sydd yn gweldol unedigol sydd yn fwy farchfawd y maidell.  Mae Gwerthdraith i ddweud gan gwyno gwych yn yr ymwyfio'n gweldol a'r unig i'ch bod yn ymweliadau. Yn ystafell yma yw'r unrhyw o'n dweud, ac rwy'n ddweud, i'w ddim yn ymgyrch, ac rwy'n dweud, rwy'n dweud, yn ymlaen i ddweud mewn cyfraith ymlaen, byddau yn ymlaen i ei gweithio. Efallai, dyna dweud, efallai y ddweud yng Nghymru ymlaen i'r gwybod i'w ddweud ymlaen i'r ddweud, ymlaen o'r ddweud. Rwy'n eich dweud, Ond mae'r amser ei ddweud, ac mae'n mwyn eich ddweud eich ysgol chwaraeb yn ddysgu'r ddyliadau'r gweithio i ddeithasol. Mae'n ddigonwch ar gyfer o'r c Safety pace ei ddweud i groesgol, pan oeddw'n profiadau bobl am y baig a dwi'n ddweud. No, fraywyd pan o'r tîm cerdd Llywodraeth i'i newid gweithredu — raised loads of money and costs. It's very difficult to move away from that. We've typically gone to what outside commentators have said. Slow, that's been a deliberate act. You will have seen last year, that in our first year we rolled out ten jobs as a worker. When you got down from the trade, yng Nghymru, rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n ddweud 10 ysgol ysgol, ac mae'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n ddweud 40 ysgol ysgol y sgol y bydd yn gweithio'r byd. Rwy'n ddweud i'r reall sy'n cyfnodd o'r cystafell a'r cystafell ar gyfer Clynydd, rydyn ni'n gweithio'r cystafell. Rwy'n ddweud o'r cystafell yn cael ei wneud i'r cystafell yn unrhyw unigol yn rhaid i'w ddweud i'w ddweud eich cystafell a'r cystafell. Rwy'n ddweud i'ch hefyd o'r cystafell yn y dyfodol, ac mae'n ddweud i'ch ddweud i'ch ddweud i'ch ddweud i'ch ddweud. Y gwasanaeth y gallwn y gallwn, mae wedi i wneud o'ch dweud o'r ddeithas, oedd cynnyddio mewn gwirioneddau o'r ddweud, sy'n ddweud yw'r ysgrifennu o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddeithas, ond fe ydych chi'n ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud. A mae'n gweithio'n ddweud, y dystiad cymryddiant, ond we've kept rolling, and it compares outcomes for the job seekers allowance regime for outcomes you're getting on universal credit. Now the OECD thinks that job seekers allowance is one of the most effective, if the most effective way of helping people into work across the developed world. A universal credit, compared to that, is producing outcomes in excess of that, which strikes me as actually quite remarkable for this stage of the programme. For every 100 people who get a job in the first nine months of their job seekers allowance claim, 113 people are getting a job on universal credit. Now that's matched, so they're like groups of claimants looking at the right outcomes, and we've had the methodology for this peer reviewed by NISA, the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. So it's not just us saying this, and that is fundamentally what the reform is about, is about trying to encourage people into work and support them more effectively. So effectively what's going on in those first nine months, they are finding work quicker, they're staying in work longer, and more of them are finding work, which is quite encouraging. Now we're keeping those studies going, we intend to produce them regularly as we expand the numbers of people on universal credit, we'll expand that and see what kind of labour market effects we're getting. But that's a very encouraging start for the programme, and in a lot of noise you hear about universal credit, I don't think that really gets that much kind of focus. So those are the two things convene I really wanted to say by way of clearing my throat at the start of this. Thank you very much for that. If I could just start off, you mentioned about universal credit, the rollout being the biggest change programme in your introduction and obviously testing and learning. Do you have a timetable for the rollout of the services? We're looking at two different services, one running alongside each other at the moment, which is causing difficulties, the digital as well. Do you have a timetable for the Scottish rollout? Yes, so we published a couple of weeks ago now a timetable up to and including September 2018 that lists all of the job centres and all the local authorities across Great Britain where the service will be rolling out. And about a week ago, the Northern Ireland Government, because it's devolved in Northern Ireland, announced their parallel plans from September 17 to September 18 for the rollout there. So I'm very happy to share that list for Scotland with the committee if you haven't seen it. We know that Glasgow has the largest amount of universal credit claimants and the rollout, I believe, is going to be one of the last in Glasgow. I just wonder what you perceive to be any difficulties there and obviously, and I know that the committee wants to come in on this as well, in regard to the job centre closure, 50 per cent in Glasgow, how that would have a knock-on effect in this particular rollout. So, in effect, the kind of key date in the rollout is in October 17. In October 17, I spoke about how we've kept it small whilst we learn and we're roughly on average between now and October 17. We do about five job centres a month across Great Britain and there are about eight, I think, Scottish job centres in that sort of phase going on. In October 17, we step up the pace to roughly, and it varies each month to around 55 to 60 job centres a month. That's what I mean by going to scale. And essentially what we've done across Great Britain is of the 712 job centres, if we've still got 712, I think it's about the right number, then they've all got a schedule point in that period from October 17 to September 18. And we've spoken locally with Denise and her equivalents in the other parts of Great Britain to say, what to you looks like the most optimal order for doing this. I need to get it done. I need to try and level it out across the country because I've got to train people and keep the existing services going whilst we do this. That's what looks optimal for you. So that's why the shape of the rollout in Scotland is as it is because it responds to the advice I've got from people working in Scotland saying this is the best way of doing it in Scotland. Just to pick up on that particular point, we visited Musselborough job centre, and we obviously had witnesses as well, and they're telling us there's difficulties with the two types. They're saying that it's very difficult to keep up with the changes to the system, particularly the two different systems in universal credit, which are in operation at the moment. And even though we visited just two weeks ago, I think it was, we were never made aware of the job closures, of the job centre closures. So it must have been done not just two weeks ago, but last week it had to have been done on the agenda for a number of months. So maybe I'm directing it to yourself or Denise Horsfall, but we've never given any indication whilst we're visiting the job. Let me explain something about, well, two questions there, convene, or two points. The first one is we have the live service that we are running in parallel with our new full service, which is you saw the full service in Musselborough. That's the rollout I'm talking about coming in the next 18 months or so to everywhere in Great Britain. As part of that, and we've done this in Musselborough, we move people off of the live service on to the full service. So there is only one system working there, but in other parts of the country at the moment, for example, in Venice, we haven't done that exercise yet, but that is part of the plan to roll us on. Now, I'll bring Denise in a minute to talk to you about the specifics of Glasgow, but it is worth understanding that for the part for work and pensions, we're in about a thousand properties across Great Britain. The Conservative government started this process and the Labour government took it on, so it finished, it straddled that change of government, but we signed a 20 year deal in 1998 on these properties for long term leasing kind of arrangements. And that deal was coming to an end in 2018. So we have been negotiating with not a thousand landlords, but a very large number of landlords, some direct with the people we took the 20 year deal out with and some with individual landlords where they own the titles of the buildings. That's a very complicated commercial discussion. And because of some of the commerciality about that, that's very difficult to do in an open forum, because if the person you're negotiating with knows you want to be in property X or property Y, the price of it will go up. So we've been trying to secure the best deal for the government, you know, the taxpayers and the like in terms of that because our general view of things were 20 years on, we were paying over the odds for the accommodation we were in. We also wanted to take some opportunities to try and co-locate and with some local authorities have been successful in some of that. But again, if the landlords knew what we were doing in location X, they could work out what we were doing in location Y. So things were kept, cards were kept very close to our chest for those reasons. In about Glasgow specifically, so convener, yes, we didn't talk about it. I made reference to the fact that we were looking at a state, but I certainly wasn't specific when we met. It wasn't in my gift to be specific at that stage. I had an authority to actually talk to you about it. My authority came on the day of release. That's where my authority came. So the 50%, just to put it into context, we've got a high density of job centres in Glasgow compared to other large cities across the country, across the UK. We can't do some of our activities in those sites, so our smaller sites don't allow us to bring partners in, don't allow us to bring some of employers in, we just haven't got the space. But in fact, then I've got large amount of space in other places such as the retention sites that we've been talking about. So we looked at what was felt to be an appropriate and a reasonable travel distance between sites. Settled on some anchor sites, some sites that we're retaining, and then looked at the travel distances from the smaller sites where we just can't do the business, but we could absorb the business into the retained sites. So that's pretty much the picture. Now I can go through every single site if you want me to. Now I'm sure that everybody knows by now, but the principle is very much about trying to be reasonable about the amount of distance between sites that people have to travel. Five out of the eight sites that we're asking people to travel from are distance from site to site is somewhere between one to just over two miles. And the other three sites that we're consulting on are between two and three miles. Now I do recognise that people live in a, you know, it's like a Venn diagram. They live outside of, they don't live on the doorstep of the job centre to some people. And as we go through the consultation and the implementation activities, we'll make sure that we look at those outlying customers and think about where's the best place for them to go to. But at the moment this is proposals, you know, so we're going through the consultation period. I know that many members want to come in and I'll make you come back in as well. Thank you very much, convener. Picking up on these questions and particularly with regard to Glasgow, I understand the issue of the 20-year contract. And I also understand that as the All Party, House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee said unanimously in a report only last month that the future of Job Centre Plus is one of change and to make a success of its new role, Job Centre Plus will have to ensure that it's open to working in ways that are increasingly flexible, adaptable and experimental. I understand all of that. But given that, given those contexts, I still have three questions about the proposals with regard to Glasgow first. Am I correct in understanding that we're talking both about the merger of a number of job centres and about the closure of a number of job centres? So if I've understood the communications from the Secretary of State in the last few days correctly, it's proposed that there are to be three job centres that will close in Glasgow. And in addition to that, there will be a number of mergers. For example, I understand that Anisland and Patek will be merged. So the first question is, am I correct about that? The second question is, I understand the concerns about commercial confidentiality, but this Parliament has well established ways in which Governments can communicate with Parliamentarians under conditions of strict competence that enable us as elected representatives to understand in advance of thinking that Government does. I'm a member of the Finance and Constitution Committee, and the Finance and Constitution Committee frequently takes issues in confidence where it's necessary for reasons of commercial confidentiality. So I'm sorry, but that excuse doesn't stack up given the well established procedures that we have in this Parliament for dealing with those sorts of questions. And third, about the consultation that you just referred to. Is that a consultation only about the closures, or is it also a consultation about the mergers of other job centres elsewhere in Glasgow? And is that consultation live yet? Because I couldn't find it on the DWP website this morning. Okay, so I'll take the first one, which is there are eight job centres that the services will propose not to be operating in those areas. I'm trying to be clear. Mergers or closures, those job centres will not have the same job centres once actually we go through consultation or unless consultation says that we should retain them. So there's eight job centres, five of which I suppose what you're talking about is what is for full consultation or not. So three are for full consultation, and five are within the guidelines of what we consider to be reasonable distance to travel to a neighbouring job centre. So five are within that less than three miles or 20 minutes away. So those are our sort of guidelines that we use so that those five are not for full consultation. They're with the accounting officer and basically we can decide where to put the business I'm afraid. Three are for full consultation because they're outside and so from a ministerial perspective there are some guidelines that the ministers decided we should be thinking about. And those are over three miles or over 20 minutes. So three are for full consultation, which is Bridgeton. Castle Milk and Maryhill. Thank you, Castle Milk and Maryhill. And five are not for full consultation. Now that means that all services are still going to be provided in the sites wherever the customers are asked to go to. So it's not, there's no jobs lost. The individuals will still receive the service and in fact a better service than they're getting currently because we just can't operate out of some of those job centres in the way that we wish to. The second question was around the commerciality issue and your concern about not being advised beforehand. I'm afraid you're going to have to take that up with ministers. It's really not for me to comment on, I'm afraid, Ms Tomkins. And thirdly, the issue of, sorry remind me again. Is the consultation life? So at the moment, yesterday it wasn't. So I'll take that away and make sure that I understand when it will go on. We've got posters and leaflets, but you know, you're right. When is it going to be visible to people that aren't visiting the job centre? We have issued letters to stakeholders as well. And certainly I'll be very happy to provide the website address for this committee. So the consultation we've been told is going to run until the 18th of January. Yes. So what's the length of consultation that you would ordinarily expect for such a period? I had thought that the normal length of consultation for government consultations was 12 weeks. I've been advised by the programme that the 18th of January is the deadline. Even though the consultation is not yet live. That deadline won't be put back given your delays and getting it up and running. I will have to take that away. Please do. Thank you. Yes, it's on the same subject. I'm not convinced that for the people of Glasgow this is a better service. I'd like to know if you're still in negotiation then with the landlords over these properties or has that stopped? Is that the sole reason for the three closures and five mergers? As Adam Tomkins has said, it seems extraordinary that you would give him what Sandra White has said about the volume of claimants in Glasgow and the extent of the closures. It's extraordinary that we have hardly any consultation time at all. Most people will probably go on some kind of holiday from the 23rd of December. The government must be aware that it's very difficult to run a consultation period in that period but a lot of things are completely shut down. It doesn't leave much time for consultation at all. Perhaps we need to take this up in another forum but I'd like to get this on the record. That's quite extraordinary, the extent of the closures. I'd like to know if you're still in negotiation with the landlords but also on this question about what's a reasonable distance. I don't know how well you know Glasgow but those who know Glasgow will know. You can't travel north and south of the river sometimes on the same bus. Has any of this been taken into consideration at all? This will be a complaint from many claimants across the country. It's not that you're 20 minutes from the property. It's how long does it actually take you to get there if you have no car? I'd like to think that there was some consideration given when you thought what you made a decision on what was a reasonable distance. Again, two things. One, we used the IT systems that we've got to investigate travel line and also Google Maps. That's not getting on a bus and getting off a bus. It's not? No, but it's still a travel line that tells us. Why would you not... Surely if you were modelling how long is it going to take a claimant on average? Surely you'd be looking at bus services? No. But that's what I'm saying. What we've done is looked at travel line and looked at the bus services to and from and also route. But it's not physically doing it. There is something here about, as we get into granular planning, understanding how customers can get to and from and particularly from those outside of the direct link between job centre to job centre. So there's further work to do without a doubt. Are you still negotiating with landlords over any of these properties? I understand the negotiations across the UK are still going on, where they are in specific terms with Glasgow. It's not part of my responsibility, I'm afraid. Before I bring George Adams, could I just ask another question, perhaps even Mr Cooleyn as well? At the very beginning, I asked that we went to visit Musclebridge job centre and yet these closures were imminent and no-one passed us to the committee. Yourself, Horsley, had said that it wasn't within your power to let the committee know and you only knew about it yourself. But there's been an awful lot of work that went on in the background, obviously, when you say about travel line. So obviously Mr Cooleyn and yourself had assumed and others would have talked to each other. So they must have known that these job centre closures were going to happen months ago and yet you're saying that it wasn't within your power and you were only told when it was announced. So I'd like a wee bit of clarity there in that respect, considering we're only giving people in Glasgow as Adam Tomkins and Pauline McNeill have said, you're only giving them something like, he weaked really because you get the Christmas in New Year holiday period. Claimants and others are only giving a week for the consultation and yet how long has this been going on about the job centre closures, which no one seemingly knew about. And I could just think fling something else into the mix. The landlord in Castle Milk has said that he will reduce his costs, his rates for the job centre there to ensure that it stays there. So once again we're talking about renegotiation as well. So timescales, without a doubt, you're absolutely right convener, that these didn't just drop out of fresh air. There was a discussion about what seemed to be acceptable for the city of Glasgow. What was the best use of this state? How was we going to deliver the services? But those proposals went then into a consultation period with the landlords. So those negotiations that were going on were going out somewhere else in the organisation. I didn't know the end shape of it until five days before when actually I'm told that actually those negotiations were finished and the proposals were okay as such from a commercial point of view. So that's the clarity I knew five days before of which I still am not in a position to be public about it until the day of announcement. So basically you looked, sorry, the department looked at only these closures, only these areas in Glasgow. I think you need to clarify that what a bigger, a bigger troll we had in Glasgow or Scotland as a whole and you settled on the Glasgow one. So I mean this is where I sort of agree Mr Tompkins and disagree Mr Tompkins at the same time. Okay, this is a, imagine this, there are a thousand negotiations effectively going on. I mean I'm probably exaggerating the number because some of them are with a landlord who own about 40% of our buildings. But just imagine there are lots of negotiations going on on different timescales completing or not completing. So Denise's equivalent across Great Britain, some of them know what's happened in some locations and we've published those. In other locations there are still discussions carrying on. So we don't yet have a complete national GB picture here. So what Denise is saying is absolutely right. As negotiations are completing, Denise and others will be made aware, not least because when the negotiations completed, the landlord is then free to say, because the negotiations are completed, what's going on because many of them have commercial considerations as well and their shareholders know they've been negotiating with us. So it's quite a complicated picture to lay out for everybody exactly what's going on either in the middle of those negotiations and subsequent to them what then would happen. So this is why I think I agree, Mr Tonk, and disagree. We are talking to the Scottish Government, we are talking to MSPs and MPs about the consequences of the decisions we might make across the piece here, but it is not possible to do that in the midst of the negotiations. Simply because you might find that a landlord says to you, I don't want you in our property from now on and we've had a number of those in the negotiations too. So we've had to try and source another property in that location or we might be coming out of that location and the landlord doesn't want us to come out of that location and may offer us a revised deal even after the negotiations have happened. So I'm not trying to hide behind the argument, it's very complicated, but it is quite complicated and I don't think you should infer a lack of a desire to talk or consult from that. It is just quite a tricky thing to do this one. We'll never have a 20-year deal again, will they all end at the same time? I didn't ask this question and I don't have an answer. I mean it's a big department, it's a government department, I know it's negotiations are complicated, but I want to be clear, is this the reason because of the 20-year lease is coming to an end, is this the sole reason why you're potentially closing five job centres in Glasgow? Is that what it amounts to? I wouldn't put it like as the sole reason because it is clearly a point in time that we have to renegotiate. Whatever would happen at the end of this 20-year deal we would have to renegotiate. If we'd left it to 2018 we would have been taken to the cleaners by our existing providers. No, but that's why we're engaged in a process now about why are you doing this now. Because if we can do it now and reach a deal beforehand we will strike a better deal in terms of cost service provision. Notwithstanding what point you negotiate and what point you go public essentially the reason that sorry to dwell on this but I just want to be clear but essentially the reason that we're having this consultation is because you're having to renegotiate albeit in a complex way these properties. There's not another reason for proposing the closures of these job centres other than that. The contract coming to an end gives us an opportunity of looking at the estate completely across the whole of Scotland and making better use of what we've got. I've got half empty buildings that we've been paying for as well as buildings that I can't fit all services in. The whole point about bringing the hubs together was to maximise the use in the buildings where we've got space so that we can provide better services and we are currently in those sites where we're closing because actually we can't fit the services in and certainly with the footfall under UC it would worry me if I retain some of that accommodation. I mean the 20 year deal effectively locked us into a lot of properties as well so Denise has been left with great underutilised space in a lot of places and we've been unable to get out of that because if we wanted to leave a building we had to pay a premium price to get out. So that's why I say I'm struggling a bit in answering your question because it's an opportunity but what if I say an opportunity you'll think I've been wanting to close sites and do stuff for a long time. That's not the case. We're trying to shape our business for the future. If you want universal credit we'll in this phase put about another million people through the kind of job centre network so Denise when she constructs her plans for Scotland needs to size for that fact and even after doing that in Glasgow you come to the conclusion that we have come to in terms of the shape of the job centre network there. So that's really what we're trying to focus on. Did you want to get a small one back if we say that then? Just to clarify I've picked you up correctly or not you said that you're in a process of renegotiating across the whole of the UK and you've completed that in Glasgow and that's why you've been able to bring forward these proposals so can I just clarify if we're going to see similar proposals then coming forward in Lanarkshire, Falkirk, Lothian and right across Scotland for similar proposed closures? Right so there's two things one we've already made some closures so Stawn Away is moving into the debt centre I think I mentioned this at Musselborough actually and Ghana for example we're closing the building there and moving into a smaller accommodation because that's all that we need there to reverse. Concerning the rest of Scotland yes it's not been concluded now I'd love to sit here for the rest of the sites in Scotland but I can't as of today we will know hopefully by the end of February or March at the latest where we are with every single site across the UK but I don't know I can't tell you today I want to come in that quick one and I know you've been very patient George because it's a different subject Alice you don't go on and touch once and then George Adams Thank you convener I understand what you're saying and so forth and because leases come to an end they're purest too from what you say have been a block deal that it gives you an opportunity to do that now but if you're having a consultation and it's in such a short timescale as has been pointed out does that not mean that people will suspect and in fact might it not be true that the consultation is pointless it's simply one of these consultations that's being held after the event and it's just one of the consultations I think for the three sites is to listen for me so we've already said that the timescale appears to be too short so I'll take that away but I can't promise today because these consultation periods are set somewhere else So does that mean the approach to be adopted or the decision that will be made in terms of the sites may be altered as a result of the consultation Why consult if not We have to be open to the possibility that you would change I used to run the job centre network and ran a number of consultations on a number of buildings across Great Britain and changed our thinking on a number of those in the light of local feedback So yes it's an open consultation Thank you The committee here is all in agreement that you do take back the fact that the committee is very concerned that the consultation period is actually just about a week and we would certainly wish that it would be taken back that it would be longer to whoever you take it back to it would be interesting to know who it is actually maybe we'll find that out eventually George Adams Perhaps Covina if I can just say I sit on the executive team of the Department for Work and Pensions so I've heard the message very clearly Thank you very much George Adams Thank you Covina I think it's a week and as Pauline McNeill said it's over Christmas as well you know it's not exactly the best timing or you could be cynical and say it was perfectly timed but I would like to talk about the universal credit roll out that's self Mr Culling you've said we've seen it in action and unfortunately we have we have seen it in its various guises in our constituencies I've had tragic stories come into my constituency office the human carnage created by the sanctions regime as an example causing untold kind of problems with families throughout and it was also evidence that we brought from Musselbrush CBA as well could you tell me so that we can actually go through it what is the process for sanctions regime in general because we seem to have all kinds of different stories and nine times out of ten by the time an MSP or a parliamentarian gets involved we can sort it out but why do we get to that stage and why do we end up causing all that problem it is a slightly different process for sanctions within universal credit compared to job seekers allowance and if you allow me a little bit of explanation it may help the understanding here in job seekers allowance if you fail to attend if you do not turn up and sign on in old language we stop your money we wait about five to six days to see if you contact us but we stop the case there we stop paying you in universal credit we don't do that because universal credit is not just the kind of job seekers allowance portion of entitlement you've got housing you may have money for children maybe some money for disability or caring in that total so we don't stop the money if you don't contact us what we do is we refer for a sanction in that case only on effectively the job seekers allowance equivalent bit of that entitlement that's for two reasons one I mentioned test and learning early on early on in the roll out we realised we were in danger of people who went into work and just failed to tell us quite often people don't tell us when they go into work we would be withdrawing a big chunk of support when they would qualify for continuing universal credit in work so in the experience that you will see I think and probably the cases that go wrong come to you in your constituency offices because the cases that go right will never go anywhere near you you will see a bit more noise around sanctions but it's not about a desire to be punitive it's actually the opposite of try not to do what we would do under the old system which would switch everything off because there's so much money now riding on the universal credit claim it's not just that job seekers allowance amount so does that helps you understand just kind of what's going on there when you see the numbers it will be very easy to go crikey there are a lot more people being sanctioned under universal credit than there were under job seekers allowance but that will be because under job seekers allowance it wouldn't show up as a sanction, it would show up as a closed claim and we're not closing people's claims that still doesn't sort the problem that the person's not getting the money that they need at that time as well that's the human cost of the whole policy as well and I'm quite sure that some of the noise as you put it that we're hearing about it you said that you want to concentrate on what's working with the system as opposed to the noise surrounding what's not working using your words again the noise and things that are not working is actually what the public are talking about that is the important thing and that's about this affecting people's lives because at the end of the day you are these people's last best hope to actually sort things out and if it's not there, if that safety net's not there it becomes very difficult for these individuals so I think that's to misconstrw what I was saying in my opening comments what I was saying was that and I've read the evidence that previous witnesses have given to the committee and that was solely focused on what was going wrong what I was trying to give the committee was a short five minute version of what's going right as well I'm very happy to focus on what's been going wrong to talk about that and to talk about how we've been trying to improve things but you misunderstand me if you think I'm not going to focus on what's going wrong that is not what I said in order to improve our system you have to work out what's going wrong and fix it I'm saying we just can't sit there we can arose in the glasses and say these are the good things that are happening with the system we have to deal with the issues and in particular because of the people we're dealing with in your case we have to get this right and it's not it's very flippant to just say the noise surrounding this this is people's lives we're dealing with Mr Culling here you know this is extremely important I'm sure you're aware of that and I think we're talking a bit past each other here I think we're actually having an agreement but in order to understand what is going on I think it's better to see the whole picture and not just part of the picture now you may disagree with me on that and that's your right but I think we should look at the whole picture The timescales some of the citizens advice bureau from Musilbro mentioned about the timescales being a major issue the lack of flexibility the fact that it's an online system the lack of flexibility for the individuals and at the end of it's a four to six week period and as you've already said some of that includes housing benefit money so it builds up more arrears we've had witnesses saying that in councils that it's building up more arrears for housing as well you know how are you going to address that because one of the things that we've actually heard was that some of your pilot schemes down south that you've had you've actually had these issues and you didn't fix them then on the other sites as well so how are you actually going to deal with that if you're not actually solving the problems So the picture on arrears is an interesting one and how it's presented is interesting too If I start with just what's the headline position on arrears based on what the data and search we've done is that about 48% of universal credit claimants are in some form of arrears with their housing payment after three months that's fallen to 33% So there's an issue at the start of the claim and I know the committee has heard evidence about the six week period before you're paid and so forth but there's also something here about and there's something about just our experience about how claimants are finding it interacting with the system two points here the first point about landlord attitude is that we found a number of landlords charge rent in advance when we in the benefit system pay in arrears and in fact employers pay in arrears as well I'm sure your salaries here for the Scottish Parliament are not paid in advance they're paid in arrears but there's a book arrears problem here in some of the presentation it's also the case that a number of people are entering universal credit already with arrears now I'm not just so we don't go past each other again Mr Adam denying that the amount of arrears on individual cases has grown but it's not right to suggest and you weren't so I'm not accusing you of this that universal credit is the causal factor in somebody having arrears very many people have arrears when they come into universal credit and we're building a bit at the start of that partly because the way in which the system has been designed by Parliament and then we are actually starting to clear those arrears now why is that happening there's another kind of causal factor here as well that we identified in the while we're keeping it small and we are trying to address this which is many people particularly in the social rented sector do not understand that they have a rent liability so and I'm not blaming them this is just how the previous system was kind of constructed but people are coming to us declaring on their claims that they don't pay rent and then about two months later we're getting an anguish call from a social landlord saying they haven't paid their rent for two months now they in good faith said well I haven't been paying I don't pay rent because it's been taken care of by housing benefit for years and years and years so we have done some work and I was in East Lothian talking to Angela Leach about this a few months ago about when we bring people on to universal credit how do we explain to them that they are liable for their rent if they've got rent and if they're living in a social rented sector property they have got rent they just might not appreciate they've got rent so we've got issues like that to work with and what we've been saying to East Lothian is join us in the kind of group sessions we have for claimants at the start of their claim when we explain to them what universal credit is like what they've got to do to help them in their declaration that they've got a rent liability here so there's a number of factors driving this it's the attitude of lawyers the attitude of landlords sorry in terms of how they book arrears in their own accounts there's the pre-existing arrears position there's the interactions of the six week kind of process before you get your first payment and there's a lack of understanding about universal credit and what it is you need to declare at the start of your claim and yes to your last question to the previous question to me we are working on this to leave the situation here George Adamson do you want to come in again I was just going to ask I was just going to once very short simple question Mark Griffin do you want to go in the back of that there are appeals to be do you target staff for sanctions because there seems to be a myth or an urban myth that staff are actually encouraged to do more sanctions so no we don't I did a study for the then secretary of state that debunked that myth it persists inside of the organisation Denise I know will do lots of work in her team with her managers to continually emphasise to people that we do not have a target for sanctions Mark Griffin do you want to come in particularly in that then it sounds interesting I wanted to touch on the issue of universal credit and rent arrears as well but firstly just to ask the previous benefit a housing benefit was that paid in arrears or in advance it's paid in arrears so I don't understand then why universal credit should be different when housing benefit was paid in arrears that any change and move to universal credit and the housing element of that being paid in arrears should make any difference but some of the evidence that we have here local authorities Highland Council 82% of council tenants claim in universal credit in a live service area 96% of tenants in digital service in rent arrears last month East Lothian 82% in arrears and we're claimed 69% of universal credit claim in arrears from that time and local government those seem to be staggeringly high numbers of people who are in arrears how are those figures in comparison to other areas? I think it's in terms of other areas what we've yet been unable to do is to try and isolate the UC effect if I can describe it like that on arrears because in the old housing benefit world for social landlords who happen to be councils which I know in Scotland is predominantly the case the kind of risk was kind of contained so if you were in arrears because as I said housing benefit was paid in arrears whether you actually booked those arrears or not or even noticed them as a council because you knew the way that housing benefit worked eventually the rent was going to get cleared so you weren't particularly worried about that as the universal credit moves that outside of your boundary you're super sensitised to that I think so the thing I think that's kind of shocked landlords particularly social landlords is that when they've looked at their own kind of accounts and realised now and this is true in number of the as Mr Adam said number of the pilot areas down south they've actually been quite shocked at the level of arrears that they were carrying inside of the system so we are trying to do a piece of work to isolate the universal credit effect here because if there are things that we can do to minimise this this is in everybody's interest to do that but as yet this is quite a tricky piece of analysis to do because our kind of base analysis the pre-existing situation the information is not very clear across all of the councils and all of the social landlords and so forth so we have I think we do have an issue I'm not denying it about a higher level of arrears but they are not this is not out of control as it were it's a higher level of arrears that because of the way universal credit then works the arrears get cleared actually quite quickly which is why my opening comment I can't remember to which question it was now I said 48% in arrears at the start of the claim by after three months is down to 33% and it's falling after that as well so we are clearing the arrears as it were out of the system so it's a short term effect for landlords does that make any sense to you? Thank you Gordon Lindhurst you wanted to commend a small question that then is Alison Johnson I think it's actually just been answered thank you Thank you very much I'd probably like to pursue the arrears point East Lothian Council will be discussing a report an update on welfare reform and universal credit at their meeting on the 20th December the reports by the Deputy Chief Executive Resource and People Services and I have to say it makes very concerning reading it speaks about the impact of universal credit full service on mainstream council house ranked collection and it tells us that council that current rent, tenant rent arrears have increased by almost 20% that's an increase of £241,000 by way of comparison during the same period in the previous year tenant rent arrears reduced by some £51,000 so there are serious concerns raised by themselves and indeed by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations who said that at a joint SFHA DWP meeting in September you pledged that you wouldn't allow the further roll out of universal credit in Scotland until it was safe to do so now we've heard previously from witnesses involved in the roll out in East Lothian and I think there are some very serious concerns so I'd be grateful if you could let us know what you're doing to reassure councils like East Lothian that this is going to be addressed I mean you said because of the way it's collected sometimes the arrears could be cleared off quickly I hope that's certainly the case I'd also be grateful if you could touch upon the impact that the loss of implied consent is having on a great number of people I think the SFHA feel that because people can't advocate welfare rights charities can't advocate on behalf of people and the way they might have this is leading to unnecessary evictions so if you could focus on those two points I should be grateful Don't let me forget implied consent but I'm sure you won't but let me concentrate first on the arrears position particularly in East Lothian who have as I said I went and met with East Lothian council because of the situation to explain what had been going on and there's been another exacerbating factor at this point in the rollout that I need to tell the committee about if I may so we are keeping the rollout small that's no comfort if you're in East Lothian because it doesn't matter because if you're in East Lothian the rollout's big because it's happening in your kind of locality so there doesn't wash as an argument with Angela Leitch and her colleagues and I wouldn't try that with them anyway but one of the things that happened in the process which did cause me and I have paused the rollout before I mean nobody noticed when I did but I paused the rollout back in March despite me putting it on gov.uk and everybody had done this and it's quite amazing for universal credit that nobody actually rounded on me and told me this was the end of universal credit and meanwhile I say if it looks unsafe if we can't be confident that we can deliver services to our customers we won't go ahead with universal credit until we are confident so I have a track record of pausing it I'll do it again if we need to I didn't in the autumn even though we knew we had some problems and I took the judgement that these were containable and recoverable but what was going on was we weren't making enough determinations at the end of that first assessment period which was creating a kind of vicious circle in terms of the way in which work was processed back in our service centres essentially what happens if you get behind you get more calls you then get further behind and you get yourself into a bit of a nasty circle about all of that and we had to break our way out of that by I deployed extra resources into the service centres I've basically gone 25% above what my kind of staffing allocation would be to put those resources in I can do that because I kept that small and what that's allowed us to do is to find our way out of the sort of rather vicious circle we were in there so what you've seen happen now is that we're now up to making my personal estimate of the management information I see is about 9 out of 10 cases with housing payments and now being made at the end of that first by the end of that six-week period of the initial claim which should have the effect of not creating the kind of very high levels of arrears that East Lothian experience because when we were rolling out in East Lothian we were nowhere near 90% at our lowest point we were about 50% at one point in this cycle when I was talking to some about it now it takes a little bit of time to recover and our telephone service is the last thing that is recovering on that journey because as we've cleared the arrears and got their claims up to date then the number of phone calls you get starts to fall and their call wait times improve and then you're into a virtuous circle of delivery rather than that vicious circle we were in before so that's driven in the musclebar example and for East Lothian a rather difficult set of circumstances and I've said to them that ultimately if there are costs accruing to you for this I'm open to having a discussion about what the department can do about that we asked them to go first in this as I said it was a it is a learning, test and learn environment and if there are stuff that's hit them as a consequence of that I don't think they should suffer that because of us so we're in some discussions about that without making them promises or making a promise here I've said we'll look at some of that so that's what's happened there and I'm pleased to say in November 9 out of 10 I think cases being paid in the assessment period which is actually better than housing benefit kind of performance because there'll always be some cases that have got queries on that you can't do at that kind of pace but that's there Brinc, Alison, did you want to come back in on that? Coming on that one and then I'll do implied consent I promise I'm quite happy to move on to implied consent I think implied consent has an impact on arrears in the long run because people are unable to understand what's happening and they need a bit of assistance let's face it I think that the system is fairly complex why did we get to a position that implied consent didn't follow the change to full service? So we have implied consent in live service we do not have it in full service and if I just explain why and then what you can do and how you can get explicit consent and not implied consent if this is not too kind of a detailed description for you and I'm happy to do a note to the committee afterwards if it helps it's quite a complicated story we don't have implied consent because the claimant has full access to all the information we hold on them so if you went into Citizens Advice Scotland office say and so I'm having a problem with my universal credit claim if you go on one of their systems you can see the advisor can see the whole claim they can see everything the assessor has at their end of the DWP end why is it like that? because we have a principle that the data that we hold is actually the claimant's data it's not ours and they should be able to see everything we've said on the case everything, all the discussions that go on between us via the journal, via the to-dos and so forth and some of you have been to Musselbram and have seen some of those it's not the case with live it's not the case with live in live you can't do that you can't see your system account so we have implied consent so your advisor can ring up on your behalf and go on and ask queries now it doesn't mean the advisor to speak for them it's a very simple thing they need to do which is to put in the journal I would like my advisor, Neil Cooley to speak to you about this and we will then speak to that advisor about them we may check back that you're in the room with the person or if you're not in the room we'll set up a three-way telephone call if you say you're in a rural community and you've rung citizens by Scotland and you want them to ring us and we'll set up a three-way call we don't have implied consent but what we haven't done which is what I've said to my team we must do is explain to the advice world how they work in the new system we've not withdrawn anybody's rights to do stuff I think that would be very helpful because citizens advice the SFHA are very concerned about this so perhaps we need more dialogue can I ask one small one then we're speaking earlier about sanctions universal credit combines both in and out of work benefits so I think this in-work conditionality is very much a new requirement and perhaps one that a lot of people don't understand and the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that 1.3 million universal credit claimants who are in work will be faced with conditionality which is a doubling of those who could be faced with conditionality at the moment do you think there's enough support on offer in job centres and so on to help people understand that? Not yet and that's not what we're doing yet which is probably one of the biggest misunderstandings we've currently got out there about in work Ultimately on universal credit there will be about 7 million households on universal credit which we've rolled out and about 3 million of those will be in work but some of them will be working at what we call we have kind of thresholds in the scheme for effectively working full-time may have quite high housing costs a couple of children and qualify for support and we won't have very much to do with them other than administer their claim but there's a bunch of people who are working a bit who we'd like to work a bit more and that's who we want to work with and help but nobody in the world has tried to do this before there's a slight I think there's one Canton in Switzerland who tried something once there's just no evidence for this so what we have done using the people flowing on to the live service from a point in time I think it was September this year is we are running a randomised control trial on those people so people who are on universal credit who get a job and they're either directed to no help group so they're effectively the control or we're trying out with the people directed others various forms and different forms of support but that is just a trial we have no resources yet to roll that out across the country it's not in my plan and as I told the PAC a while ago if somebody changes my plan from outside a Parliament wants more things done different things done then I will reserve the right to change the plan that I'm working to to accommodate some of that stuff so we are trialling this nobody knows what will work so we're trying out a number of different interventions here it's not about applying sanctions and it's not that crude it's been a bit misrepresented like that it's about trying to understand what would help people progress on and upwards and then when I get the results of that randomised control trial if it shows what interventions work then I'll put some proposals to ministers ultimately to the Treasury to see if there's any kind of activity or whatever we need to do and I think there's your sister committee in Westminster have done quite a good report on this where they initially started hey you're out sanctioning people again DWP and we work quite hard with them to understand what they were doing and it's almost unheard of for a select committee to commend us but we actually got commended on what we were doing on this so I'm determined that we're led by the evidence here and the state of the public finances is such that we could be led any other way Thank you, Ben Macpherson then Ruth Maguire I've got a number of questions but first of all I just wanted to say good morning and that it was great to visit the job centre in Moselbrough a number of weeks ago and I think I speak for all of us on the committee just how much we respect the hard job that front-line staff are doing in job centres not just in Moselbrough but across Scotland and indeed the UK Thank you One thing that happened at that visit was that we had a real interesting first hand insight into the process of how universal credit is managed on the ground so to speak on the floor of job centres across the country and how pertinent and important the claimant commitment is to this whole system and how fundamental it is in both setting the expectation and the standards and how much of a repercussion it can have potentially if the claimant commitment isn't fulfilled in terms of sanctions and the punitive measures that can fall thereafter so I just want to drill down into some of the detail of that and first of all ask how work coaches are trained to set appropriate work-related requirements for claimants whether that's covered by a medical certificate or awaiting a work capability assessment and also separately but interrelated what is the process of guidance and training around the discretion that's involved in that process and the monitoring, the constant reassessment that needs to happen in order to make sure that that is a healthy process in terms of encouragement and bringing people on to fulfil the work commitments that are set Firstly, thanks a lot for the message I will take that back to the teams on front line because it means an awful lot they see so much in the papers so thank you very much right so training when we get a new work coach they go on a route way of training which takes them through both technical and also what's called solution focus training and the solution focus training is the bit that I think you're interested in which is it's how they interact with an individual how they draw the individual out how they actually work with the individual for the individual to identify what their own solutions are rather than being told in the dim and distant past we would have been sat there advising people it wasn't by default that we changed the term that we called our people advising people of what they had to do rather than actually working with them to try and draw out what they can do firstly and then secondly what support they need to progress towards employment or into employment so that's the training we're also now picking up accreditation so through city and guilds we've picked that route way up we've pushed it through the city and guilds accreditation process make sure it's robust and we've got some trials at the moment with our new work coaches about how to apply to the city and guilds standard to that route way so I think that's the training the continuous improvement what I've got at the moment is I'm changing the organisation in the job centres so that we declutter the line managers of our work coaches that all of the extraneous activity that they've been doing that is important is given to somebody who's got those responsibilities solely which allows them hopefully to spend around about 80% of their time coaching their work coaches and they'll have a roundabout depending upon the numbers of part-timers I've got anywhere between nine and probably 13 work coaches to look after and their role will be primarily to make sure that the services that they're providing the information that's coming back from customers and the services that we wrap around the work coaches is really appropriate so that's probably all I need to say at the stage I mean I think obviously every situation is different because every person is different but I think for transparency it would be useful I certainly think as a politician it would be useful for greater transparency around how discretion is managed and how the process around making sure that these work capable that these claimant commitments are appropriate for every individual it would be beneficial in fact highly pertinent in my view and I would like to just be absolutely clear what happens if a claimant commitment isn't accepted by the individual involved and what would be your approach if in terms of whether the presence of an advocate or an advisor at the initial meeting and setting up a claimant commitment would be encouraged so there's a couple of things I'll end up with saying the other thing that we do is we do four more quality assurance meetings with every work coach so they must be quality assured by their line manager once a month as a minimum now I want more than that that's why I'm reorganising to make sure that the majority of a work coach team leaders time is with their work coaches because observations of the individual's capability for somebody to observe whether those capability needs are being met whether they need to go for the training or whether we've got a gap in the wraparound services as I said before so there is a formal it's not just about nice and squidgy observing it's really very much about some quality assurance activity as well isn't accepted if a claimant commitment isn't accepted the expectation would be on the manager as to why the customer felt that the claimant commitment couldn't be accepted I don't actually know what those statistics are I think they are so few and far between my concern is the other way that people sign things when they're not quite clear about it which is why again I'm really keen and making sure that people are our work coach team leaders are very clear about what they've been doing is there pressure put on claimants to accept the no not in that way I mean it's explained what it is it's explained that actually the commitment is will be a discussion between the individual they will have to provide some evidence normally people are quite happy the question for me is when people feel as though they've walked out of the building and then think maybe actually there's much that shouldn't happen but maybe it does sometimes the issue is they should come back and I see meetings time to time again when I sit in where work coaches say if you walk out of the room and you think actually this isn't achievable then please come back and talk to me about it we can change it sorry just one thing I could add the credit of things like the claimant commitment will things be followed up what are my responsibilities do I understand them and that points to us of areas where we need to improve but we're getting quite high levels of understanding around what's going on in around the claimant commitment but I'll let the committee have that that data rather than run through it now and similarly would you be open to providing us with more details on the guidance and the way where the signposts are when the claimant commitments are being assessed have been constructed rather than being assessed thereafter or those internal documents which cannot be I'm not sure is it the claimant commitment or the quality assurance of the well both how your staff members on the floor so to speak go through the process of constructing a claimant commitment what is their guidance and what was can we take that away and see if I can provide you an answer because I think you're asking for three things but you're asking for one thing that's within three things in our mind that we're going to try and answer we look a bit evasive I would be grateful for that I'm with you I don't see why you shouldn't be able to see how we're training our people and doing stuff and just very quickly similarly to what our coaches were was the ABC mantra any job, better job career and I think we can all agree that that would be advantageous if that's followed through however some of the third sector organisations working in this field have expressed concerns that it's in any job, no job any job, no job pattern that a lot of individuals fall into and I wondered if there was any data available in terms of continuous referrals so to speak where claimants are taking any job so there is for job seekers allowance and one of the reasons in terms of Ms Johnson's question we are looking at the and we're doing the RCT for in work is exactly that problem in the British system at the moment so you've got quite a lot of people are cycling around the system funny enough that's why you've got quite a lot of areas on housing benefit as well because you're moving in and out of having responsibility or not when you go into work so it is an issue inside the system which we are tempted to do but we've got data on job seekers allowance I don't think we've got it yet on universal credit when that data is available would you yeah but shall I send you job seekers allowance stuff because it's worth a read and understanding now thank you that would be great thank you sorry there was a funny question so this was about advocates absolutely not a problem at all and in fact as an example in Dundee they've actually got welfare rights sat inside the office all week and they're there for people to actually bring in to the interviews if they need them that's very welcoming given that openness and indeed enthusiasm for that between the DWP and advice organisations to try and bring more of that advice into the process I mean most of my sites or districts will have their local relationships with their local advocates anyway so citizens advice bureau or welfare rights so they've already got those relationships there's nothing stopping those conversations going on because what we want is we want people who are building relationships on a personal level but actually who feel confident to disclose their circumstances because without disclosing the circumstances we really can't move the individuals on we can't support them properly so anything that will enable that is of benefit to us all I think that collaborative approach is welcome thank you thank you for being here the evidence that we've taken previously on universal credit there's been consensus really that although in principle universal credit was meant to simplify things actually in reality it's been quite complex and there's been a number of issues you've used the phrase test and learn quite a few times which I think is a sensible approach but the evidence that we took from some of the local authority officers was that that learning actually wasn't being shared between the areas I've just been interested to hear your comments on that I did read what the other witnesses said about not what we promised on the tin as it were but in fact I once had a Twitter exchange in Welsh which was a brave act on my part my wife is Welsh so I had some help at Google Translate from an advice worker who was talking about this is much more complicated than jobseekers allowance well it is because it's got housing in it it's got child inequivalent effectively child tax credits in it it's got some of the disability benefits in it too so the process if you just think of it well I deal with housing benefit or I deal with jobseekers allowance we'll look more complicated but if you added all of those up you will see it is simplified the legislation is simplified the rules around it there's a common set of rules now so you don't get the kind of rub effects of the housing benefit rules rubbing against the tax credit rules and so it is simplified in that regard in terms of your question about the actual learning how do we do that this is something extraordinarily important to us we are passionate about test and learn it is the way to do things we commended it to other departments and other entities like the Scottish Government who are about to embark on running some bits of social security too and you know how it's a sort of two-way process in that we put practitioners inside of our teams developing things so we have operations folk we have people from the local authorities we have claimants testing the stuff that we're building and then when we put it out there and deploy we have what we call the seal process that's CIL for the people trying to take a note of these proceedings continuous improvement and learning and that feeds back things from Denise's folk into my design teams who then look at what's going on and we say that's not meant to be happening how do we fix that problem now we've got lots of feedback that's come back we have not acted on every piece of feedback yet because as I said this is a rather big enterprise we're engaged on doing but we will get to all of this stuff and work our way through and iron out the problems so it's two-way we've got people doing the design who are experienced practitioners experienced within the existing system and then we are getting feedback from people from outside and so forth and we're putting that back into how we polish and design the system Thanks for that answer I was actually quite struck by the strength of the response from these local authority officers I mean these are established professionals who are well used to systemic changes and working in new ways Your answer didn't really give me what I asked Let me try again that what they wanted was for that some of the learning that was happening amongst the different areas to actually be shared because obviously when we talk about things going wrong although we're talking about systems here there are people at the end of it and it causes real problems so why isn't the learning being shared between the local authorities and yourself Okay so from my perspective it is but it may not be visible to some people yet because we've taken something back into design to get right So for example at the moment the local authorities are consistently saying to me you need to share information on the benefit cap for universal credit because in the old world the local authorities had the information on the benefit cap because they were the ones doing the capping through housing benefit For universal credit people we do the capping and what the local authorities are saying is quite rightly we need to know who has been capped because that has consequences for our services and how we support people so they're absolutely right so I have heard that piece of feedback what I do not have is a light switch approach where I can immediately flick something on in the system and put that information back out to them I need to go away design a way of providing information to them that's congruent with the data protection laws and our other responsibilities to protect the system itself in terms of the gateway that I give to them so it's not easy to immediately respond to feedback and I can understand why councils would be saying I was talking to Hounslow the other day and Hounslow said this to me I was talking to Islington Islington is saying this to me a number of councils are giving us this feedback you're not joining us up you're not listening we are listening my speed of response cannot be a media and I think you might be picking up a bit on that because we certainly are trying to use this feedback we're getting to improve the system and meet people's needs because I agree with them we need to provide them information on the benefit cap Can I just come in on that particular point when you're talking about the information because it has came on board would that be manually or would that be computer operated obviously with 15% of the powers coming to the Scottish Parliament for social security we're looking at obviously computer systems and extrapolating Scottish addresses and names etc from the bigger system from the DWP would it be done in that particular way in regard to what Ruth Maguire was saying about the capping and how local authorities dealt with it previously seems very cumbersome if it's not so I already you've got to do it by system approach here the volumes are such 7 million people can you imagine trying to do 7 million clerical bits of information at the speed of interaction between us and the local authorities or landals or so forth so I already provide to the councils certain bits of information normally around so that they can operate the council tax rebate schemes that they run so I provide things like name, Nino address the date universal credit started if they're on alternative payment arrangement for landlord some things like that I'm not providing at moment benefit cap but one of the things we're looking at is developing what we've called a landlord portal which will allow social landlords access into the system to in pursuit of the kind of as Ms Johnson was saying it's a bit advocacy but also a bit how do I Mr Griffin's point keep arrears down to as low as possible in terms of rent and the like that's a non trivial task to do because as I said there's a bit of a treasure trove of data behind the wall that is the DWP in terms of holding that data so I've got to work out a way of doing that safely so that you can't data mine or somebody else couldn't hijack an account and get in and steal data from us but that's what we're working on and that's our intent is to respond to this Do you have a timescale for that because it seemed very cumbersome not as much complicated considering obviously local councils had this information previously on a timescale for for this I'm wary of giving any politician a promise because they always disasloat it but we are so at the conference we were talking with Scottish Federation of Housing Associations in September we were talking about this we've made progress in the design the way in which we design things is in a very agile iterative way so we have a working prototype inside of things but it's got to do a number of things past security testing and so forth so I don't have a date for you today where I think we will have done this but I think it's one of the things I need if this helps before we go to scale in October 17 if I haven't got it I'll need another way of responding to councils and landlord feedback so those are the sorts of timescales that we might offer a promise here because this programme was weighed down with too many promises early on I think and it's been successful because I've sort of avoided giving too many since then all we want is transparency no no I appreciate that it's a very fair question Pauline McLean wants it again it's a specific question that the SFHE raised with the committee and I'd like to ask you in relation to one of the perceived benefits of universal credit is that it could be left open for six months after a claimant had found work which has obviously benefited people on zero hours contract or seasonal work so the question is why is the practice of keeping universal credit claims live for six months discontinued in full service without prior consultation so it's not been discontinued we just have a different way of doing it ok so technically in one sense you could argue the claim is open for 14 months in the full service offering all we actually do is ask you if you come back to us to effectively click a button that says reclaim none of my data has changed and we stand the claim back up rather than in the live service where we say we keep the claim open for you for six months if you come back to us you actually have to go through the claiming process again so actually it's a better service I think but what we've singily failed to do with this with the SFHE and a number of others is to explain this to them so that they understand it now in my own defence we've been quite busy building this thing as I said this is a rather big task and explaining and building at the same time when it's evolving around you he's quite a tricky thing to do but I've said to the team we need to get better at just explaining like the implied consent point like this because we actually have a slightly better story to tell than the kind of initial reactions here so that's what we do there's no waiting days to serve they don't need to verify their idea again and we keep them on the same payment cycle as well so I think it's a slightly better process but at the moment I'm failing to explain that to the SFHE and others and that's my fault and I need to do better I think they've properly heard you but thank you very much thank you very much I'd like to thank I guess Neil Cullings and Denise Horsfall I think it was an excellent session we got a lot out of it obviously you'll be back to the the figures that you mentioned the fact and take back as you said Mr Culling real concerns about the short time scale in regards to the closures and the Glasgow job centres and I look forward to hearing back from you in regards to that and others so I just close the meeting and move into private session


Great. Everyone. Yes, there's one round. You want us to just talk from here? Is that? Probably reasonable. Good. Yes, we'd ask anyone who's speaking at any time to please do so at the podium. Just in case the people are watching. People. I'd like to hand up. The half of David. Can I have copies? Should I give you the original? Yeah. You can do whatever you want. Thank you. All right, may it please the committee. Thank you. My name is Dave Belding. I'm an attorney here in Columbia. I represent Mr. Ali Salim, who has a. Operates a store down on 701. Jervais Street unit 130 in the Vista called. AJ seven start tobacco and vape. And we're here because. We're appealing the denial of the issuance of a business license. I have given you the affidavit sworn affidavit of Mr. Salim with some documents that he presented to me. Basically showing that he's been in business for over a year. I'll call Mr. Salim up to authenticate the affidavit, but just in some reform that would essentially be his testimony. Naturally. Any questions, he'll be happy to answer them. Basically, what happened is this. Mr. Salim owns a number of tobacco and vape stores in Richland County. As a matter of fact, and it's some in North Carolina and in Virginia. He found a location down on Jervais Street near where the gets to build it. If you know where the gets to build this to guild building their offices are they're in the same building right in there on 701 Jervais. He has an accountant and he's mentioned in here. He has an accountant that takes care of all the bookkeeping for all of his locations and does a number of administrative things for him. When he found this location down on Jervais Street, he entered into a lease. The lease is attached to this affidavit. He wanted to go ahead and open up a store. They looked. It was a permitted use in the general commercial zone at the time. And he had Mr. Saudi get all of his documentation together. He formed a new LLC, got a new federal ID number, went down and got a state retail license. Did all the filings with Secretary of State's office. And he checked several times with Mr. Saudi to make sure that they had everything. And he was informed that everything was in place. When all the licenses went up on the wall, they opened up. I don't know the exact date. It was sometime in May of 2022 with no knowledge that again, he has 14 other stores that he runs. So he's going around and most of the time he's checking on the daily operation of all of his businesses. He never knew there was a retail license on the wall. He never knew that there wasn't a Columbia City business license on the wall. He had never opened up in the city of Columbia. He's been open in Richland County. He operated there for seven months with no problems. There aren't any law enforcement nuisance problems of any kind. He's just a Vista vendor. And when he was, someone came in, we believe from the business license office in December 19th of 2022 and said, where is your business license? And they said, well, here it is right here. But it was the South Carolina retail license, not the Columbia City business license. And he was informed that that's not the business license. So he came down immediately to apply for one and was told that we can't do it now because, and I'm sure this would be the testimony of the city officials because straightforward, there was a pending ordinance that had been introduced on October the 4th. After he had already been open for five months that said they wanted to zone and regulate the tobacco and vape shops in the city of Columbia. Because of that pending ordinance, it did not pass through zoning. And therefore, as I understand it, the city business license manager could not issue a business license because it didn't have the approval of zoning. For all other purposes, of course, he's in general commercial. The problem is, is there is a the pending that was pending. I understand it got enacted in, I think, January has a pretty large setback. If you want to call it distance requirement, it's a thousand feet in the municipality, which is pretty long way and long by a lot of standards. But that's what the city ordinance says. There is a another type of vape store that's approximately 300 feet away. It's on the other side of the street. It is a different type of store in that Mr. Salim store sells tobacco and vape products for off-premise use. There is no consumption at his store. The store, the location across the street, as I understand it, just in the affidavit, but this is what we hear is that they are only open three days a week and it is an on-premise vape lounge where people buy and consume vape products there. So they're two different type of businesses. Honestly, under the ordinance, it doesn't seem to make much difference what type of vape lounge or vape store you are, but they are two different types of businesses. When he opened his business, it would still have been permitted. If he had known before by October the 3rd of last year that he did not have a business license and had come down and applied, he would have been granted a license. I think that's not in dispute. He just was late getting it done. He got his application in on the 19th and was given a telephone denial in December and then a formal written notice in March of this year, three months later. Mr. Salim, he gave me all of the testimony and I had it typed up and there's attached to it just some documentation showing that his LLC was formed in April of last year. Secretary of State's office, we have their copies that in May 1st of last year, he was issued the retail license by the Department of Revenue. There's a copy of the application which is dated 12, 19 of 2022. The same day he was told that he needed one. We have a copy of his lease, just the front page. I didn't think you all needed all 24 pages of the lease, but the front page showing that he's been renting since March of 2022 at that location. He had given me a copy of his utility payments showing that he was operating and in business last year in May. I spent 10 years working for state government. I understand rules and regulations and it's hard because government, we try to find ways to take care of the most people for the best that we can as much as we can, but there's always going to be things that don't quite fit for some reason and we do have the ability with City Council to have an exception be made in a case where it is worthy and I'm here to just explain to you why I think Mr. Salim's situation is worth overturning the business license manager's decisions and giving him a business license at this location. First of all, it's clearly excusable neglect. There's no one's claiming that he was trying to get around the law. He didn't even know about it. He also didn't know he didn't have a business license, which is neglect, probably excusable, but point being that he had entrusted that to his accountant to take care of and the accountant got everything else but that. I think if they were to be given a business license at that location, the impact would be de minimis on any of the city's policies. I mean, they're already there. It's only a question of the time and he missed the time, but actually the ordinance did not get actually enacted until January, but there is a thing called the pending ordinance doctrine that was relied on by the business license office. In that case, it goes back to a case called Sherman versus Rivas. That was a sign case, you know, and those of you who know about sign cases and billboards, the parties in that case knew there was an ordinance pending that would prohibit signage. So they ran in to get a building permit quickly to try to circumvent the ordinance. That's not what's going on here.  It was permitted in that location. And the only problem we have is a different kind of vape store within a thousand feet. He had good faith reliance upon what he knew about the ordinances in the city of Columbia. He was in a general commercial zone. Everything was permitted. Everything was licensed. So there was no intent to try to get around anything. He has, we have in his after David, we have proof that he has spent a lot of money to get into business at this location. He's got employees that will lose their jobs. He wants to be a good member of the community. He wants to be a good vendor in the Vista. It fits in. I don't know policy wise how an empty storefront helps the city any more than this. But we are here essentially had in hand to ask this, that he be granted a business license because he in good faith opened up wasn't trying to circumvent anything. And he in good faith opened up and operated for seven months before anyone even told him that there was this problem. I mean, if he had known about it two months earlier, he had walked in and paid the $50 or whatever the business license fee is and we wouldn't be here. So what we have is a timing issue is all. So I would like to ask him to come up and answer a couple of questions that I asked him. Would that be okay, Mr. Brown? Okay, thank you. Ali, come up here. They're going to. Let's do that. Mr. Celine, would you raise your right hand for me? Can you promise or affirm to tell the truth? The whole truth enough about the truth in this proceeding? Yes. Thank you. Please take your full name for the record. My name is Ali Saleem. Would you spell it? A-L-I. Last name S-A-L-E-M. Okay. How long have you been living in South Carolina? Two and a half years. Okay. Where are you from, Rachel? Yemen. Yemen? Okay. What is your immigration status? Citizen. When did you get citizenship? I was a citizen. I came as a citizen. Oh, you were an American citizen already? Yes. Okay. My father was a citizen, too. Your father was American. Yeah. All right. Where do you live right now? Blythewood. Okay. Is that in Richardson County? Yes. Okay. And you heard me talking. Let me ask you. Did you sign this affidavits that I've presented today? Yes, I did. And you did not type it up, did you? No. Okay. Did I have that thing here for you? Yes, sir. Is the information in here correct? Is this information that you gave me? Yes. Are these attachments real? Are they legitimate? Are real attachments that show that you've been in business? Yes. Okay. Do you have any problem with your LLC? Is it still a limited liability company in Goodstanding? I have no problem with any paper except the city license. Okay. Did you know that, when did you find out that you did not have a city business license? When they came and told me that. Okay. December the 19th of 2000. Yes, sir. Okay. Did you think you had a business license? Yes, I did. Okay. And why did you think that? Because all my stores, the same guy that do it for me does that one too. Has he ever missed getting a business license? Sure. Okay. Did you have any reason to think he hadn't done everything? No. Had you looked to see on the wall the things that were up on there? No. Okay. Did you know there was licenses posted up there? Yes. Do you know what a city business license looks like? I know what Richland looked like, but I haven't seen them. I haven't had a store in the city. Okay. Is your first store open? That's my first one. Okay. Have you spent a lot of money getting open? Yes. So first one I opened, I spent 350,000. First store? First store. Four-stored. Four-stored. That one, yes. Oh, you spent 350,000? 350,000, yes. Okay. All right. Did you do that believing that you were operating in a location that was permitted? Yes. I know it was commercial, and that's why I got it. Okay. Did the people that lease you the property tell you that there was any problem coming with baked stores? No. Do you still have a lease at that location? Yes. Okay. Do you have any problems with that? No. Were you in any way trying to get around the baked ordinance by not getting a business license? It was in no ordinance before. What, sorry? It was in no law. Okay. Before like that. Okay. Did you, you did know that you were supposed to have a business license open? Yes. But your understanding was that you had one that didn't gotten for you? Yes. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. Did you tell this committee about why you think you need, could deserve to have a city business license? I mean, I just want to go the right way and I just want to fix the papers and being a right track. Okay. And when you found out that there was a problem, how long did it take you to get down the city business license? The next business day. Okay. Thank you. No further questions, Ms. Brown. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Slim, you don't own the building. No, sir. Did you have any alternative locations that you looked at before you opened that shop? No, I was just looking at that one for that moment. And I had the other, I had a couple other shops that I was fixed into. Where do you currently reside? Where do you live? Blyford. In Blyford. Yes. Yes. Do you have anything? I think so. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, as you know, I might come up with the city legal department and I'm here to represent the city's position in this matter. We are operating under an ordinance section 1146, which deals with appeals to council or its designee, this committee being the designee of council to hear this matter. And then in paragraph B, it refers to the hearing in which the committee will be able to be able to take testimony and evidence on the nature of the appeal. After hearing Mr. Belding, I realized that there are very few facts that we all don't agree on. We all pretty much agree to what happened. Mr. Slim opened his business, didn't have a business license. This was the first time I heard today that it was due to his accountant, but the city is not in the business of being nosy into other people's business affairs. The city council in October of 2022 passed a resolution under the pending ordinance doctrine that it was going to consider a tobacco and vape ordinance and attached a proposed tobacco and vape ordinance to that resolution which said that tobacco and vape stores could not be closer than 1,000 feet. That was discussed by council. It was covered in the media, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. It was properly noticed that in January there were public hearings on that. It was introduced at the beginning of February in 2023 and enacted in the second reading, I believe, unanimously in late February of 2023. I think February 21st of 2023. I understand Mr. Slim's argument, but a business doesn't exist to the city if we don't know about it. And we know about it when somebody gets a business license. His operation without a business license from June until December, it cannot be considered a continuing use, a nonconforming use because it was an illegal business at that point as far as the city is concerned. I understand as a businessman, especially with many historians that he relied on his accountant, but that's a discussion that he has to have with his accountant as to whether or not his accountant did something wrong. With regards to the city, he had no business license. So at the time that council passed the resolution saying we're going to consider this zoning ordinance, he was not a legal business. He then applied in December. And the facts that Mr. Bilden gave, we substantially agree with. A building license inspector went to his business, saw it, said you don't have a license, gave him an application to apply for a license. He applied for the license, pursuant to business license workflow. He went to zoning. Zoning was able to determine that there wasn't just one, but two vape stores within a thousand feet of his store. There was a business called Cure and a business called Infusion. And both of them were less than 500 feet away, basically on the other side of Jervay Street. So there were actually two businesses that would have not allowed him to proceed. The denial was held until it was determined that the ordinance would pass because clearly if council didn't pass the ordinance, he would be entitled to a business license. But council did pass the business, the vape ordinance. And so his denial was given at that point. The law is on our side on this. Literally yesterday, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued a case called Any Creations Versus the City of Myrtle Beach in which they upheld the city of Myrtle Beach's tobacco and vape ordinance. And their ordinance banned tobacco and vape stores throughout downtown Myrtle Beach, not a distance matter. The court reaffirmed that that is the appropriate police powers of municipality. In addition, the court went a little bit further. There is law in South Carolina that says that under the pending ordinance doctrine that if a business was in existence at the time, it could end, then the pending ordinance doctrine was kicked in. I'm phrasing this very badly because my brain is working faster than my tongue. Let me try that again. There is law in South Carolina that if that a business could be a nonconforming use despite the pending ordinance doctrine, okay, except that it's very clear the court has said over and over again. The exception to that is that this new zoning ordinance affects public health, safety, or welfare. The court literally yesterday said the standard for determining whether it applies to public health, safety, or welfare is whether that is fairly debatable. If there could be differences of opinion, it's enough. The ordinance which you passed along with the other members of the committee, the very first line, it says in the interest of the public's health, safety, and welfare. The ordinance itself says it's in the health, safety, and welfare. Number one, he didn't exist prior to his application in December. I do empathize with him. He sounds like a good businessman who is trying to do the right thing and it sounds like his accountant let him down, but from our standpoint he didn't exist. He did exist because this is clearly, or at least fairly debatable, an ordinance on the public health, safety, and welfare, his continued use would not defeat the pending ordinance doctrine. He didn't apply until December. The ordinance was passed in February, but it had been already announced to the public in October that it was going to be considered. Because we don't really disagree on the facts, I have our business license administrator and our zoning administrator who are able to testify, but I don't think we have disagreements on the facts. So I don't know that the committee needs to hear from them, but I'm happy to do so if you wish. I am. Thank you. Could I just add one thing to that? I do appreciate it. Once again, Mike and I have dealt with each other a lot before and we tend to agree on a lot of things. Yeah, the facts really aren't in dispute. I tried to say that first thing. The point at it is I don't want this committee to get the idea that you are prevented from doing this in any way. City Council has plenary authority to do whatever it wants, okay? Passing ordinances, granting exceptions, overturning decisions, okay? That's in your ballpark, okay? The case that was sought, interestingly, because I just became aware of the case yesterday, too. And interestingly, that's the first time this public health safety and welfare has come up. The Sherman versus Rivas case that everybody used as the pending ordinance doctrine was about billboards. It wasn't about public health, it was about billboards. And people wanted to run in and get permits. But billboards up before they were not allowed in the area being annexed into the city. So I came and I said, you know, we can talk about the law, but sometimes the law allows for exceptions to be made for good reasons. We have a guy here that isn't trying to get around anything. He came to open a store in the city in good faith. And we would ask for the committee to say in this case, because he operated with no problems. And as soon as he found out there was an issue, he came running in here. I think that is the kind of case that is eligible for your consideration as an exception. And we appreciate your time. Thank you very much. So you're technically not arguing a legal argument? No. So you're abandoning the concept of a legal argument? You have no legal argument. The law is pretty darn debatable on this. And I don't think my side is being upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court. The pending ordinance doctrine is recognized, okay? But like all laws, there can be exceptions. All right. So going back to the beginning of this, it would be reasonable though that a business would think that you should have a city of Columbia license if you're in the city economy. Unless you're in a town like Lexington that doesn't have one. Right. But it's not unreasonable. It's not unreasonable to know that you should have a city of Columbia license. I agree. And you know, and it's like, people are like CEOs of large companies. The buck stops there, but they have people that take care of a lot of things. And that's what he did is relied on a person that had successfully gotten other locations licensed who missed this pretty important step.  Yes. Because you're operating an illegal business currently? I mean, when... You might want to go up there. Yeah, come on. That's why I got Mr. Dave to come up here and try to get an appeal for this. If I shut down, I don't know how I'm going to pay rent and tax and stuff like that. That's why I'm still operating. But you're aware that you're operating the business illegally? Yes. Can I just say one thing about that, Mr. Brown? My understanding with city attorney's offices, the filing of the appeal acted as a stay. So we're under a grant from the city of Columbia. You will. I don't think we're intentionally operating illegally anymore. That we've come before the city. We've said we want a license. We want to get this right if there's a fine for filing late. And there's all kinds of extensions people get with government. That's what we were asking for. But being open right now, we understood was by filing the appeal that it stayed that decision and therefore we could operate until such time as this body made a decision. So if this committee decides that you're not in compliance, you're prepared to shut down your store? Unless there's some other legal option to get a stay, we would have to. I'll take that as a yes. Yes, sir. Anybody, any other statements over here? No. Thank you for letting us come by. Thank you. Thank you. I moved to uphold it. Second. All right, so all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. To the ordinance as well as the decision. Thank you. That was second with a question mark. Are you giving me second or second? All right, I'll take this. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.