Siarad o tataen ni och wel y nostuliai. Tor fe wnaeth chefydian wrth am lawer iawn uwchun fyn Fulladau. Swin, i mi eisiau mydd oIOeb i medlivu los llunio ar gyfer y cyfle i rimbogau deunydd. ac yn credu i chi'n gwybod i'n gweithio i'r byw. Can I ask the committee if they are content to decide to take this agenda? Item four, in private. Thank you, thank you very much. Agenda item two, as I said, previous continuation of the evidence of the bill. I have two panels of witnesses today. I would just like to welcome Bill Scott, director of policy inclusion Scotland, Mona Simpkins, Scottish director of MS Society and Steven McAvoy. to diwrnodd Gwlem Gwmwneud Ceddoedd, wrth gwrs, Ceyli Thorpe. Thank you very much for coming in. I am going to start off the question, it might seem a very simple question and it is a simple question, I don't know what the answers may be but I would like to ask each of you in your opinion what is the greatest strength or weakness of the proposed bill in relation to the people you represent. I don't expect contracts on the Bill, on the committee members who will ask you about that. What would you say was either the greatest strength or weaknesses of the proposed Bill in relation to the people you represent? Bill Scott, what would you say? I think that we would consider the greatest strength, some of the principles on the Bill, Oherwydd y trofwyr o ein bwyswyl yn ddechrau'r rhaglen oherwydd gallu fod y cynnig o'r ddim yn ynynig ar y byw yn fynd. Roedd y cychwyneth oedd yn cael ei wneud o'r wneud o'r cyfynau oherwydd ddechrau'r rhaglen oherwydd o'r system yn gydaenol i fel aethau. Those are important rights that disabled people have sought for many years in the current system, the UK system and often being denied them. We see those principles underpinning the bill as being an important signal of how social security will be delivered in the future. The greatest quality of the bill is that human rights-based approach. I was going to say weaknesses, but I'm sure you can come on to that. Thank you. I'd also echo Bill's comment. I think we welcome the principles in the bill. We were pleased to see the charter being referenced as well, and obviously we want to see and welcome the embedding of human rights within them. I think what we hope is that this approach will help to tackle some of the issues such as stigma, which is sadly around for many people who claim benefits, and people who are affected by MS. Thank you very much, Stephen. I think that we'd echo that on the principles and some extra support for carers as well. Okay, it's very succinct. I'll open it up and I'm sure there will be other questions coming in on various other issues. Adam Tomkins, do you want to come in on… Good morning, everyone. I want to ask you about the structure of the bill, and there are a number of questions around the structure of the bill that we've explored in previous evidence sessions, including the legal status of the charter, the enforceability of the rights that Bill Scott just talked about, and feel free to reflect on any of those issues if you want to. The specific question I want to ask you is about the relationship in the bill between primary and secondary legislation. That might seem like an arcane lawyer's point, but it goes to the core of what we're trying to do, which is to expose the newly created, devolved Scottish social security system to as much parliamentary scrutiny, to as much openness and as much transparency as possible. Clearly, it's the case that this Parliament is able to scrutinise primary legislation more fully than it's able to scrutinise delegated legislation. Again, it's clearly the case that the Parliament is able to scrutinise delegated legislation more fully than it's able to scrutinise guidance or other forms of informal rulemaking that might govern the way in which the new Scottish Social Security Agency gets on with the job that it's going to be required to do. In their evidence, Sam H have argued that key principles should be placed within the bill itself rather than regulations. Inclusion say that the people that they consulted were very concerned by the lack of detail of eligibility criteria in the bill enable, argued, that the purpose of benefits and the framework for their operation should be placed on the face of the bill. So the question is, in your view, does the bill get the relationship right between primary legislation, secondary legislation and informal guidance? Who wants to come in first? I will be representing people at Social Security Tribunals, so I'm very interested in the legislation. I think that, in terms of the principles, there is a comparison at Social Security Appeal Tribunals. There's an overriding objective rule that tribunals must deal with issues fairly and justly. I think that if we had a similar rule in the Social Security Bill, that might actually give a way to give some practical redress where those principles are breached for people. I think that, in terms of what's in the primary legislation, there are some bits that could be strengthened. We've been quite clear that, on disability benefits, we would like to see it made clear that the purpose of disability benefits are that they're a cash transfer and that they're paid to cover the additional costs that arise through disability. I think that in the bill, although I can see reasons why you wouldn't want necessarily every small detail in the bill, I think that setting out the actual overarching purpose of each benefit gives you a framework to work against and then to measure whether or not you're actually being successful. Obviously support my colleagues. I think that, in our written response to the committee, we said that much of the stuff that would impact somebody who obviously lives with MS, which is a very unpredictable condition, is not on the face of the bill, but rather in the regulations and things that we would commit to our timescales and entitlement criteria. As I said, it is a very unpredictable condition and we want to allow people to plan and have some certainty in their life and we feel that if those were included in the bill rather than the principles, it would provide that greater certainty. I think that I continue to believe that I don't think that the balance is right in the bill between primary legislation and regulations. However, we are where we are and we are in discussions with the minister about entitlement criteria, which is where we've got a particular concern around disability benefits. The minister was open to an amendment, which would have placed entitlement criteria on the face of the bill for disability benefits, although she was also saying that if we did that, we would have to think about entitlement criteria for the other benefits as well. We seriously looked at that. The policy team for inclusion Scotland, the policy officer for Camp Hill, who has been working with us to draft some amendments for several days. The problem that we have is that we are a membership-based organisation and the civil people make our policy, not me or the CAO or even the board. Normally, we are given general direction as to what policies to pursue, but on something like this, which is so essential to the lives of disabled people, we would have wanted to enter into detailed consultation with them about what entitlement criteria they would want to see for the new disability benefits. When we did consult last year on the document on the future of social security in Scotland, there was no general agreement about whether we should take a DLA-based type approach or a personal independence payment type approach. I think that there was near unanimity that we would like to see a return of the 50m walking roll, but on the daily living component and the care component, there was not that sort of consensus. We would have had to work with people for quite some time to probably narrow it down to make sure that the entitlement criteria that we were proposing were in line with disabled people's wishes. We do not have the time to do that in the time for the further consideration of the bill, and it put amendments in place. Simply put, we ran four consultation events across Scotland last year, engaged with 160, 170 disabled people and we engaged with disabled people online through social media, several hundred to partner. We had a fair basis on which to give a response then, we do not at the moment. I think that it is the practicalities and that we would like to wish to see those entitlement criteria definitely in line with disabled people's wishes that prevents us from bringing forward an amendment to that effect. That is a very full and very helpful answer. You are absolutely right that it is the practicalities that we are concerned with around the table that we are concerned with with the cut to this bill. I wonder then where that leaves us. Your opening remark, Mr Scott, was that the bill gets the balance wrong, and your closing remark was that there is not very much we can do about it because we do not have enough time. Is that your advice? No, no. We came to that conclusion and I had a meeting with the minister last week, and the minister was still keen to offer reassurance to disabled people that criteria could not be changed easily once they are set, and that there would be consultation on the entitlement criteria before they were set. She agreed that the superaffirmative procedure would be used when the entitlement criteria were put before Parliament, and that would allow organisations like ourselves to enable the MSSI, SAMH, et cetera, to make representations to the committee about whether those entitlement criteria were in line with disabled people's needs, and we would have the chance then to carry out the sort of consultation on the entitlement criteria that we would like to do. Further, any changes to such regulations in the future would also be subject to a superaffirmative procedure. Again, that would give some reassurance that they could not be changed easily without public consultation. Thank you very much. Two supplementaries, Ruth Maguire and Pauline McNeill. Thanks, convener. It was briefly, I guess, though you've almost answered it because I was going to say, is that one of the benefits of having it in secondary legislation is that you can have that extensive consultation that you want, I guess, if you're going to get the extensive consultation anyway. We could have done that if it had been in the primary legislation as well. If we'd had that over the summer, we could have done that sort of consultation, but because they weren't on the Facebook, we couldn't ask people, do you like these entitlement criteria, do you like other ones, et cetera. It could have been done either way, but as I say, I do still believe the balance is a bit wrong, but I think that some of the, there will be a great deal of reassurance for the superaffirmative procedure being used. Thank you. Pauline McNeill, what's your supplementary? I do, I mean, I think this is the central area for the committee to scrutinise and make sure we've understood the evidence and that we can take a view on the balance. So, presumably from the evidence you've given that if we get more principles into the primary legislation, then that would be a protection because the regulations should not undermine the basic principles. But secondly, I just want to be clear about this. Are you content then, if you're consulted on the regulations, let's say entitlement to disability benefits, if you have a say in that and they are in the regulation and not the primary legislation, and if that's the model for other benefits, is that right balance or not? I mean, I think that the committee needs a steer to be fair on this. Okay, Mr Scott, you want to come in and other members, if they wish, in the witnesses. Okay, Steve. Yes, we would like to see some of the parts strengthened in the ball, particularly disability benefits to make it clear that it's a cash transfer, non-means-tested benefit, and the specific purpose is that it's intended to cover the costs that arise through disability, also carers allowance, then it's an earnings replacement benefit, again, really setting out clearly what are the purposes of each of the benefits are, and then within the regulations, if they were properly scrutinised, then I think that that could potentially be a way forward. Morners, do you want to come in? Oh, sorry. In the bill, I think it's really important to have the purpose of the benefit so that you know what you're measuring the regulations against. Morners, we would support that, and as we've said already, timescales over decisions and things like that, we would want to see in the bill as well. Bill, did you want to come back in that? Yeah, there's definitely things we would still like to see in the face of the bill. For example, around overpayments, where we don't think that the bill. Is in line with the policy intent, you know the wording of the bill, so there's definitely changes we'd still like to see. But again, on the back of the principles, we've prepared an amendment that ministers have to give due regard to the principles and exercise their functions as ministers, and that we believe again would make the principles stronger and more effective in action because in doing anything in certain regulations we'd still have to give regard to those principles and certain regulations. Alison Johnston, you wanted to come in. Still on the same point, it's about the issue of future proofing too. It sounds as if you're having constructive discussions with the current Government and the current Cabinet Secretary, but what if that changes? You say in your own submission, you know I've raised this issue of the UK Government undermining a tribunal decision on PIP eligibility previously by using secondary legislation, and you point out that part of your fear is around the fact that the UK Government recently made changes to the scope of entitlement to PIP via changes to the regulations. I mean, can this be future proofed? You know, even if you have a really good relationship with the current Government, is it enough? You know, we may have a different Government in future who may simply disregard or find it easier to disregard a gender set in secondary legislation. I mean, if the superaffirmative procedure is on the face of the bill, then it will be very difficult for a future Government to ignore that, because it'd have to again change the primary legislation to get round it. So, you know, it does provide some degree of reassurance that it will not be an easy change and that it will be the chance for ourselves, others, to mount a campaign against changes that we don't agree with. My absolute preference would have been for them to be on the face of the bill, but we are where we are, as I say, and I think that we've worked with the bill as it is. I think that the greatest degree of reassurance that we can be offered is uses superaffirmative. And, if possible, a reference to a Scottish Social Security Advisory Committee, like the UK one, if such a body was brought into being, that would again provide some reassurance because it would provide independent advice to the Social Security Committee and the Minister about how regulations would affect recipients. So, again, that would hopefully provide some reassurance to current recipients that they couldn't easily change things without somebody having something to say about it. Okay, thank you. Any other witnesses want to come in on that one? Jeremy Balford, you wanted a supplementary on it as well. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just following up on what you've been saying. And it's just been interesting to get your views, particularly Stephen, with his kind of tribunal experience, in that there is a reasonable amount of latitude within interpretation of both, particularly DLA, but also to some degree of PIP. And you do end up with tribunals can reach in very different decisions around upper tiers and even to a house of law, or what we've been caught now. Would you want to see the regulations a lot tighter? So it's very clear who's in and who's out, or do you think the flexibility of interpretation is helpful? Stephen, okay. I think it will be very difficult to have designed regulations where disputes and people who fall between grey areas don't arise. Disability benefits, the entitlement rules are only ever really a means of calibrating disabilities. And when these benefits are intended to cover such a wide range of people with different conditions and combined conditions, I think that's always going to be very, very difficult to get an absolutely 100 per cent perfect system. If you leave them relatively open, it gives a kind of degree of flexibility for people who sort of don't necessarily fall completely in the rules. We have looked at a potential way where we could still have the regulations fixed, but allow people who still desperately need that support to fall within the criteria. Under employment support allowance, there are exceptional circumstances rules where you can show that if a person doesn't meet the ordinary criteria, but there would be a substantial risk to that person if they were found to not be entitled to the benefit that you can actually use those exceptional circumstances, use rules to still give the person entitlement, and that might well be a means so that you could have firm regulations about who qualifies, but also have an exceptional circumstance criteria where somebody with a disability who would otherwise be quite at a severe disadvantage if they didn't qualify for support could get in via that route. Thank you. Anyone else want to answer that question on the panel? Mona? I think we would echo that, but I think we would welcome the criteria to be more defined as well. I think we would want it to make sure that it does recognise that unpredictable fluctuating condition and just not to go over what has happened previously in that one in three people with MS who received a previous higher rate mobility component of DLA had their payments cut after being reassessed for PIP, we want to avoid things like this happening. Thank you. Very quickly. Just on that issue, because again, I've been trying to get you very briefly on what the two tests around a typical day is obviously quite difficult for some conditions, particularly something like MS, and also future, because no one knows how long the condition will continue, will it, how it will work, how do we... I think we're all concerned with this committee on what happens at the co-face. We can talk about great principles, but it's when somebody applies for something, how do we get on? Can you give us some kind of guidance on how would you get round the issue of a snap that's not a one-day? How would you redefine that? Mona? I think, as I said, and you probably already know the unpredictability of MS. It's a long-term condition. It's not something that there is currently any cure for. I think the things that make it difficult in the current system is the 20-metre rule, for example. That just doesn't work for someone with MS, because you could wake up tomorrow morning and be able to walk 20 metres and next day not walk at all. So I think we want to make sure that the criteria captures conditions like MS and unpredictability of it and that people are actually assessed by people that understand the medical condition. Oh, Stephen. I think that's one of the ways where disability allowance was slightly better than the personal independence payment, because the personal independence payment is clear that it needs to be the majority of the days, whereas under disability allowance decision makers were supposed to take a step back and look at the overall pattern of the person's life when deciding whether or not they met the criteria. So I think that's one of the ways that DLA was definitely better for fluctuating conditions. Thank you. George Adams and Alison George want to come in and be a small one after George. Thank you, convener. Good morning, everyone. At this point, can I declare my membership of the MS Society, because Stacey is MS and she was 16-year-old, and I'm only too aware of the things that you have to deal with in the MS Society. But one of the, just to go follow on from what was said there, is it not the case that the problem is with the current system? The problem is with the current system, is that we have a situation where it's so flawed that individuals are obviously getting knocked back for PIP during the transition period, and about 60 per cent are actually getting it in a pool. Is it also not the case that I think Bill mentioned before that some other evidence that he gave is that the older system was a paper-based system and it was found that it was less than 1 per cent or something like that, was fraudulent, which in social security terms is incredible. Is it not a case that this new bill actually puts out a way that we can actually deal with the dignity and respect thing, but make sure that we can actually do it in such a way that people like people who have MS, are treated in a way that they actually get what they need, as opposed to the current phase, walk that 20 metres. Well, I could do it today if I've got MS, but I'll burn my bed for the next week. Is it not the case that we're moving towards a, moving away from the heartless condition that it is currently now with the PIP and moving on to something a lot better for individuals, using the individual as a base? Absolutely. And certainly one of the things we've said is that we believe that we would like MS to be included in one of those conditions that doesn't have to go through that face-to-face assessment. And we've discussed this with the minister already and that's been quite welcome. So yes, absolutely. And it is that, as George said, that unpredictability of the condition and the fact that we know someone living with a neurological condition, £200 extra a week, it costs them to just exist with that. I think that that will be determined by the regulations that come forward on assessments. But I think, again, the current policy intent and the commitments given by the minister are that there will be fewer face-to-face assessments. And I think that that is a step forward because I think a lot could be determined from evidence that already exists, care assessments, you know, GPs, health records, CPNs, opinions, et cetera, about how the condition or impairment affects the disabled person's functionality because that's what PIP assessment really measures. So if there were far fewer face-to-face assessments and there were longer awards, which would also reduce the number of assessments because people were being reassessed. In fact, some people who only transferred from DLA PIP less than two years ago are already being reassessed because their awards were only two years and they were backdated to when they claimed and they quite often weren't assessed for five or six months after the claim. So the idea that somebody only gets an award in about a year later has to go through another assessment process to determine exactly the same things as before just seems ludicrous to us in the ways to public money. So, you know, if there is a follow-through in regulations that do look to a more paper-based approach where all the evidence is collected, prior to a decision being made, I think that that will improve things for everybody. It will reduce the public expenditure and it will also give a certainty and reduce the stress for disabled people who have to go through that process because that snapshot is very unfortunate because for people with fluctuating conditions, people with mental health conditions, we've seen people denied the benefit on the basis that they wore make-up and were well dressed when they attended the assessment and that was evidence that they weren't severely depressed. I'm sorry. It's just not on. So, you know, we should be looking at all the evidence in the round and making a determination and, as I said, I hope that that reduces the number of face-to-face assessments and the number of repeat assessments that have to be made. Stephen, did you want to come on with that before? I think that the regulations will obviously be really important but there has been a historical issue across benefits. I've seen really poor assessments and decisions making under incapacity benefit, employment support allowance, disability allowance, allowance attendance, allowance and PIP. So, while the regulations will be important, I think we need to fix what goes on behind that because irrespective of the benefit that's being assessed, the decision making quality has been so poor historically that I think that there's something else behind it that needs fixed as well about how the actual regulations are applied and that's about the evidence that's gathered and power in decision makers so that they can actually go to the most appropriate source rather than just do things by rote and just fix in some of the silly examples. Our appeal success rate is well into the 90 per cent and I would like to say that's because we are so good but if the decision making was of a better standard that clearly wouldn't be at that level and we are representing people at appeal, for example, recently a man who gets 24-hour support giving no mobility yet he gets a hand in hands that tribunal, people who attend additional support need school, getting no points for communication or reading or budgeting just things that could be fixed very, very easily so while the regulations will be really, really important I think it's important to focus on how they're applied as well because that is where really the person gets the letter through the door to her and then what they're entitled to. We've all been to various events with the minister and the minister said that that's a question for us to ask when she comes here but that's the kind of road that she's wanted to take getting it right first time effectively so that we don't have a situation going down the route, people going through the whole process because it's the process itself that causes more heartache than anything else. As there has been said, the stress for something like MS can cause a major relapse so that's exactly what we want to avoid. Alison Jordan, do you still want to give him the supplementary on this one? Yeah, I mean just very briefly it does sound that this is absolutely key to this whole process and in far too many instances it's been going horribly wrong I think I feel astonished that given we've got advice from physios, consultants, GPs and so on people are still being subjected to this in many instances, non-expert assessment which is resulting in them losing cash being very stressed and becoming even more unwell Do you think regulation is the right place to have this? I mean are we giving this area enough attention given that it's so key to people's day to day life? Bill Scott? I think it's extremely difficult in primary legislation to set out and I think Stephen's also correct the way that regulations are interpreted is also very important and the standard of decision making and these are things that you can always change by legislation it's about the ethos, the agency in the future it's about leadership at political level and within the new agency that will set the standards that people look to I've been taking part in a durationary awards working group which is a sub-committee of the stakeholder group for disability and carers benefits and the durationary awards is a key issue because PIP, for example, makes an assumption that awards will be shot will be one, two, three years and yet many, many disabled people have lifetime conditions and many of those, even though variable are not likely to improve and that's a key they may get worse in other words quite often progressive conditions so if somebody has been awarded at the highest rate for mobility and daily living component on the basis of a lifetime condition what is the point of assessing them again? I can see no rhyme or reason that somebody should be subjected to an assessment when there's no prospect of improvement so there should have been and could have been no improvement in functionality in those terms, if the new agency adopts regulations whether it's the possibility of longer awards then that should hopefully improve things for disabled people because even if the decision making doesn't improve that much people will still be entitled for longer periods once they get an award Mark Griffin, you wanted to come in Thanks, convener I wanted to ask about assistance in cash or in kind, I think Stephen's been pretty clear on this so far but just to ask Moana and Bill what their views were on whether assistance should be provided in cash by default or not We would support the calls by other organisations that cash benefits should be the default position as I've already said there's additional costs of living with that neurological condition such as MS and we feel that cash awards provide greater certainty and allow that flexibility for people to live as well as they can with something like MS Any other witnesses want to come back in that particular one? We're exactly at the same point of view that currently all disability benefits are provided as cash assistance and even where a disabled person chooses to use their cash in another way for example to lease a motobility vehicle they still have an underlying entitlement to the cash assistance so it isn't in kind support even when it is a motobility vehicle that's being used because it's their choice to lease it it's their choice to use the money in that way and simply what the arrangement is that the DWP pays their benefit to the motobility scheme rather than direct to the person and that's almost like an arrangement like we rent where you would pay direct to the landlord rather than to the tenant it doesn't mean that you're not entitled to housing benefit you still retain your entitlement but you've chosen where that payment will go and that's what we would like in the future that people, if they are offered in kind support for example reduced fuel bills that's a choice they make rather than one imposed on them so cash is a default That seems to be the Government's position as well that in their policy papers they've set out that cash assistance should be given in all instances except where the applicant makes the choice and it is clearly not a choice of the agency to make that decision I wonder whether you feel that that should be on the face of the bill so that that is clearly and that there can be no movement away from that Yeah, absolutely Again, we think that's an instance where the policy intent isn't matched by the wording of the bill the wording of the bill would allow the agency to substitute cash payments for in-kind assistance and we would prefer if an amendment was brought forward and the indications are that the minister is going to bring an amendment forward on that to ensure that it's a clear choice made by the claimant or the recipient of the benefit if they choose to take in-kind support rather than cash Thank you, Jeremy Balfour you wanted to give me a very small supplementary I'm interested in this because at the moment all you can get for PIP outwith a mobility show for the care factor is money Do you think it could be the first or the other way round that if the claimant would like it that they could get some kind of actual practical help rather than a cash payment because for some people depending where they live the cash payment doesn't actually meet the cost of the service that they require and if there was a statutory duty to say somebody needed somebody to come into the house one hour a day and that would be provided If that was an option, would you like that in my bill or do you think that the cash is still the best way forward? I don't think that cash is the best way forward because if we're moving towards a self-directed support system where social care is provided as cash to the recipient to fully make the choices of who provides the care and when it's provided and what forum then I can't see that bringing that into the benefit system where you give them less choice would really make sense Anyone else want to come back in before I bring in Ruth Maguire? Ruth Maguire Thank you, convener. Good morning panel I wanted to ask you about independent advocacy we've heard a fair bit of evidence on that and I would maybe reflect that it seems to mean different things to different people so I'd be interested to hear how you would define advocacy and what makes that different from advice and representation? We have put together an amendment along with several other organisations disability agenda Scotland Scottish independent advocacy Alliance, Camp Hill Advocard and the Alliance for Health and Social Care because we believe advocacy is an essential for some groups of disabled people it's not advice have to be very clear about that advice workers often talk about being advocates on behalf of your claimants, disabled people but an advocacy worker performs a really essential role for people learning difficulties, mental health issues some cognitive impairments like autism people with brain injuries etc which is that the advocate tries to make intelligible the questions that are being put to the disabled person it's almost like having a translator in place where they try to get the disabled person to understand the nature of the question and then try to get to the answer that is required rather than the answer that the disabled person might immediately give so for example often learning disabled people go back to self-directed sport are often told to say that they can manage a budget to get self-directed sport right so in one scenario social workers ask them if we gave you that money could you manage it is the answer that they've been encouraged to give but it's yes with support they couldn't really manage the money on their own they would need to do it with sport but the answer that they're asked in a PIP assessment is can you manage a budget what they've been told before the answer they're supposed to give is yes so they say yes so they get no points but there's no way they could manage a budget without support so an advocacy worker's role is to fall down and get to the answer but the disabled person to make sure the disabled person really understands the nature of the question and gives a full answer rather than just the immediate answer that they might give without an advocacy worker do you want to... sorry just briefly that advocacy you're using the term advocacy worker but I suppose that someone to advocate for the disabled person to be someone who they choose and is that what is not necessarily a professional it could be a peer advocate but the mental health act in Scotland actually defines advocacy and says in what circumstances it can be provided and we would like to see a similar right embedded in the social security legislation to ensure that those disabled people with the greatest need for advocacy were able to access professional advocacy support of course they can choose somebody else to be their advocate we're not saying they can't but again it should be a choice open to them that they can obtain that support when it's needed because quite often again for example a lot of landed disabled people they'll live you know hopefully into their old age but their parents might die when they're in their 50s and they might have been their advocates they might have been the people dealing with social security and all of a sudden they're deprived of that and who advocates on their behalf okay any other witnesses want to go on to Stephen we are quite clear that advocacy and advice is really really important for people with relatively small projects across the last three four years we have helped people to claim over £4 million and claim benefits and we are having a lot of client groups that necessarily maybe wouldn't go to traditional advice services because we are a bespoke service for people who learn disabilities, families and carers we've built up referral networks with other professionals and they're able to refer into us clients for that extra support and it's people who might never ordinarily contact an advice centre and we're able to maximise their income so I think it's really important to have advice but also to have it the other thing I think that we are quite keen on being taken into account is the complexity that's building and actually providing advice and how important it is that it's properly funded so that the stability and the resources are available to provide that new benefits have been introduced universal credit that system is working alongside the legacy benefit system then you have the devolution of benefits so it's a system that was already complicated which is getting increasingly so and it's important that people have not just advice but good advice as well advice that's up to date Would you agree with Bill though that advice and advocacy are two quite different things? They are different I would say that advice in terms of social security is quite specific it's about helping the person maximise their entitlement how should the legislation be interpreted representing the tribunals whereas advocacy can be used across our range of settings such as health any decision really that the person has to make legal health so I think that they are separating that there's a need for both I think specifically in reference to social security there is a real need for representation because while an advocate can provide an important role in terms of getting the person's message across representatives are able to help the person challenge and also challenge to a level that maybe a person who was unsupported wouldn't be able to do any kind of stuff in the actual interpretation of the legislation I wonder if you want to go in this one I just obviously agree with my colleagues we feel the same way that there should be provision for advice and advocacy and that they are fundamentally two different things and we would support that being put into the bill and just obviously from an MS point of view that is really important because 80% of our members said that they found a whole process of claiming benefits very stressful and that is obviously the huge cognitive issues associated with MS so there is that need for that pre-advice entitlement and obviously advocacy as a programme Can I say it also it would also be in line with the idea that the minister has and that this new agency has again at right first time because if you can give somebody access to a service that helps them be understood that lets them be heard by professionals who are doing the assessments that serve whether the officials in the new agency or health professionals and better understand the system that they are trying to navigate their way through then you are more likely to get the correct information from the get go rather than having to go to an appeal tribunal to argue the difference because the information you supplied at an early stage was not incorrect it did not expand to the extent that somebody who has no learning difficulties or no mental health issues or cognitive impairments would have any difficulty in negotiating the way through so we think it would improve decision making because you would get the correct evidence at an early stage Thank you Good morning panel Just on the same points I think this is very important an advocate in my constituency if I have been in touch with me about it already the distinction there between advocacy and advice is really helpful for us as is the commentary on it at 3.9 and inclusion's submission so essentially what you are proposing if would be advocacy across a range of different scenarios per se for individuals in certain circumstances for example with certain disabilities but with the point about advice if the agency was able to get the advice right as in the Scottish Social Security Agency do you think there would still be a necessity for independent advice or is that a manifestation that seeing that as a necessity in the current scenario is that a manifestation of the way that Social Security has managed that present under the DWP is that clear what I am asking so I think that that is quite complicated I think that even if we managed to get the devolved system 100 per cent perfect we would still have the UK system and we would still have the devolved systems interaction with the UK system so I think that clients will still need somebody who is able to understand the whole picture and advise them so if the person maybe gets a devolved benefit does that change their entitlement to a reserved benefit are they able to claim other things so I think that there would still be a need for that I very much doubt there will ever be a system that I said disability benefits will only ever really a means of calibrating disabilities and there will always be objective opinion so there will always be disagreements and I think therefore there will always be a need for an independent person to look at the person, go through their case and then support them to challenge it if necessary so even within 100 per cent perfect system I still think there would be a need for advice because what is sometimes important to the person is even if they are not entitled is that that is explained properly and that the person gets a real grasp of why they are not entitled and it is not that they have been treated unfairly these are the rules and sometimes somebody even providing that independently can give them that reassurance rather than just the agency's interpretation of why they are not entitled and we also need advice services to challenge the legislation because the legislation is written and maybe originally intended can always be expanded through a case law my years as an advice worker now so long ago but anyway when I did it it is really important because it is case law that expands the understanding of what the intention of policymakers often is so for example with a 50 metre or 50 yard row as it was when it was introduced the intention was obviously to provide assistance to people who had mobility issues what was tested in tribunal was is it just a test of whether you can physically walk 50 yards or is it a test of whether you can walk 50 yards repeatedly safely etc and that's what the tribunals decided that actually it's not just a simple yes or no it's can you do this on a repeated basis safely because if you can't you still pass the test in that sense and you should get the award so I would still see a need for independent advice to continue to test how the regulations and primary legislation work in practice but there should be less need of independent advice to go to tribunal if more decisions are made correctly at the get go so one in the same time there is still a need for independent advice but there might not be as great a need as under the current system so it's hard to tell in advance of the new system being in place whether the need will reduce or not but you know at the moment if intentions carry through in practice then there might be less need but there will still be the need at UK level and in the interaction as Steven said just to pick up on something Steven Mcvoise said you're absolutely right to say that of course there will be practically a need to think about the interaction between the reserved and the devolved system but given this is a social security bill on the Scottish social security system as defined as relevant to the devolved benefits only would it be understandable to you if there was only a right to advice or advocacy included that it was only a specific reference to what is being devolved no I think that the devolved system will always need advice and representation as well sorry that's what I was saying even solely just in response to the devolved system I think that there will be a need for advocacy and advice and I also think that advocacy and advice can be seen as an important positive for the system as well because we're effective with the test the regulations to get entitlement and that tests the system as it fit for purpose are the regulations fit for purpose but also we are able to help clients present the best case possible at the earliest opportunity so if they have advice and information it means that the form will be well filled in what we will be writing in the forum will be quite closely related to the regulations as well so the persons providing the most accurate information at the first point will usually reduce the workload of decision makers and help us to get the decision right first time as well advice and information networks can also build up referral routes and sources of evidence that can be really really helpful and reducing cost in helping decision makers get things right first time if a professional is referring to me they will usually be happy to do me supporting evidence as well which can go in with initial application that means that decision maker doesn't have to request and all other things can help speed up and improve the accuracy so as well as being there to test and challenge the system but also to help to support people through it as well and to make decision makers' lives easier so what you are basically saying is that there is a need for both advocacy and advice because they are both different yes Alison Johnson you wanted to come in can I just ask on your views of the need to have the uprating of benefits on the face of the bill do you believe that benefits should be upraced annually and should that be on the face of the bill Steve we are quite clear that the reductions in uprating have led to quite a significant decrease in the income of the people that we support and it's been I think still the biggest individual saving in terms of the social security bill that's been the biggest cut and we definitely believe in the need for benefits to be uprated annually and that that should be on the bill Mornau, do you want to come in and agree with that that the annual uprating should be there for a bill I think one of the problems with the bill is that it's a catch-up in all the benefits and all the assistance are there because we do believe in annual uprating but if the nature of the benefits is changing in the future that might not be how it's paid and this is coming back to the cash or kind one for example in funeral payments if at some point in the future it's provided by other means it may not be possible to uprate if it's provided an in-kind support instead so there is a problem in that it is a catch-up rather than that there are individual pieces of legislation for each benefit but you could address that through just saying that certain benefits will definitely be uprated annually for example all the disability benefits do have that provision at Westminster at the moment and we would like to see carers allowance as well including that but in general we would support uprating annually for all the benefits that are covered but if there are proposals going to be brought forward at some point to change the nature of the benefits that might then require a change in primary legislation Thank you Adam Tomkin, you wanted to give a last short question There's another aspect that isn't in the bill and I wondered whether you think it should be but there's no provision in the bill to enable Scottish ministers to exercise their power under the Scotland Act 2016 to create new benefits and I wondered whether you think that there should be such a provision in this bill Bill Scott, do you want to give in first to help? Yes, I think it should be on the face of the bill, I think it's an important power and I would like to see Scottish ministers taking it up You know there have been instances in the past when people have been deprived of assistance when they probably should have received it I think the kinship carers in particular there could be an instance in the future so having that power on the face of the bill would at least allow ministers to exercise that power Any other comments from the panel Ben Macpherson, you wanted to come in with a small supplementary Apologies, not a supplementary I have another question just when you think that's appropriate On you You sure? Just I know we touched on them earlier but I wanted to come back to section 1 about the principles and I thought Bill Scott, the submission that you've made at 3.5 in your evidence around the proposed 1C principle around dignity and respect I thought that was quite an interesting angle that you've taken there to elaborate on it further Essentially because British law at present is based on the European convention of human rights when the convention was put together Social security wasn't uppermost in the minds of the legislators and the European Court has proven very reluctant to intervene where nation states have cut benefits and cut benefit entitlement We do think there is a need to provide adequacy support and dignity and respect flow from that because if you're not getting adequate support then you cannot maintain your dignity and respect you're reduced to being beholden to others to eat or to keep a roof over your head or to heat your home so we would like to see something on that and to face the bill and to see that strengthened Thank you very much Can I thank the witnesses for attending and for the great information that you've given us? Can I make one offer? We have provided amendments to the minister and the head of the bill team Could we also forward those amendments to the chair? Stephen Murdoff Quite something quite important for us is the inclusion of mandatory reconsiderations in the bill prior to the appeal stage and we would like to see that removed and the return to the previous system where if the person disagreed with the system the lodged an appeal an internal reconsideration was conducted and if a decision wasn't changed then the person could go to a tribunal The stats from the legislation in the reserved system show that decision making didn't improve what happened instead as the number of appeals reduced and our concern is that this is what would happen in a devolved system and it's not that decision making would have improved it's that people who aren't supported or have other issues in their life at the time will fall out of the system and that it also increases places quite a high administrative burden on clients and also ourselves supporting clients and keeping track of when the decision came in has the person appealed because there's time limits involved in all of this and it massively increases the workload of advice agencies as well as putting additional stress on clients and we don't think it's needed we think that an internal review process could be conducted to the same standard without having that process mandatory It is a very important issue that you've raised at the end of the meeting just to be clear have you discussed this with ministers if you have done what response are you getting to that point? The response that we've received is that under the reserved system that mandatory considerations were introduced with perhaps a more cynical purpose to reduce the number of appeals and that the devolved system would be better but there's not really anything concrete behind that to show why that would be the case and I think there's a recent policy paper as well which was given the impression that the intention is to proceed with mandatory considerations if the intention is to make decision making better in the first instance then I don't see the need to have the review process have a mandatory second stage it just doesn't seem to me to have any sort of practical positive when the person can lodge the appeal and an internal review can be conducted in any case Thank you very much and you've got that well in there Stephen at the end and we'll certainly look at that as well Can I just suspend the meeting for a few minutes until the witnesses leave our new group of witnesses come in Thank you and welcome to the second panel of witnesses Craig Smith, Police Officer Scottish Association for Mental Health Peter Hastie, Campaigns Police in Public Affairs Manager Macmillan Cancer Support Industrial Advisory Council Welcome and thank you for coming along I'll start with the first question it'll be similar to what I asked the previous panel we've heard lots and lots of stuff about issues within the proposed bill and I just wanted to ask your opinion what you felt was the greatest strength of the odd weaknesses of the proposed bill in relation to the people that you represent by Craig Smith Do you want to go in first? That's fine I suppose very similar to the previous panel definitely the biggest strength for us is the inclusion of the principles and the charter in the bill particularly the principle of social security as a human right I think it's really welcome I think the rhetoric around the bill has been very welcome from the Government as well and I suppose that kind of aligns to our greatest fear about the bill in the sense and it's been discussed a lot by previous evidence and the first panel is that balance between primary and secretary legislation while the principles are very well worded we'd like to see an extra principle around promoting wellbeing and health through the social security system we think there are some big concerns around that balance between the primary and secretary legislation just to really get those principles and the charter really to have practical force on that Thank you very much Craig Peter Hastings, do you want to go in that? Yes, Macmillan Cancer Support echoes a lot of those views we're very positive about the entire way that this bill was set up all of the discussions around it I started back in March 2016 when the Scottish Government released a cancer plan they said that a welfare based on treating people with dignity and respect was in the actual cancer plan that said we want to fast track trying living with termin owners such as cancer so we're delighted that this bill takes that one in and one of the things that we want to get over convener is that we think it's more than just a job of this bill to have a good social security system in Scotland we think it's up to the health service private employers third sector employers, state employers to support this bill to support for instance cancer patients staying in work and so the cancer plan last March was using exactly the language of this bill Hugh Robertson As a UK-wide Government body we don't think it's really appropriate for us to tell the Scottish Government what this should be doing we're really here mainly just to answer questions about the UK system in terms of employment injury assistance so I don't think it's appropriate for me OK, we'll get our special question for you Mr Robertson No, no, no, I'll show you Pauli McNeill, you wanted to come in particularly on this one Yes, good morning I wanted to ask you about the rules that should apply to the face of the bill on terminal illness so we've had some evidence that suggests that it's not defined on the face of the bill so of course you'll know that it's a separate route for eligibility where there is a terminal illness and the current welfare reform act suggests it says that anyone who suffers from a progressive disease can reasonably be expected within six months I did also meet with Mary Curie yesterday who have a view that that is far too prescriptive and I wondered what your view was would you like to give evidence to the committee on that Peter Hastie So there is a range of views on it for cancer itself the knowledge of the cancer pathway still remains within that six months so broadly the consultants, the clinical nurse specialist can know that the person should be in the last six months and therefore eligible for those benefits and we're still comfortable that the cancer pathway is met by six months now as more and more drugs come into the system as we get better and better at palliative care as we detect cancer earlier that may change but for McMillan at the moment the cancer pathway is broadly well served with this and as you know it's not an exact six months the consultant, the CNS will give a rough approximation but for cancer patients at the moment it serves as well however I think it would be fair to say that the representations that you've got do show a different strand from other long-term conditions where the onus is different and a different trajectory from cancer and I think perhaps the committee would need to take more from those individual long-term conditions and maybe collectively from some of their wider bodies but just for cancer at the moment we think we know that trajectory in the last six months of life obviously it's not an exact science and we hope that with greater palliative care and detecting cancer early we will get there for a longer period of support but at the moment six months the job well for cancer patients and that's a very broad does it okay if you know what I mean it's still a very difficult situation so you're content with the current definition as far as purely for cancer patients because the doctors can tell that trajectory but you would acknowledge that there might be other conditions where a strict six month rule might not be appropriate definition and we see that with other conditions it's not an expert on those but I think it is right that other long-term conditions are more I'm sorry I had to ask you this because in my interview I'm not able to give evidence and I just wanted to make sure that all the organisations who have a view on this can have a chance to that's the outcome Chris Smith would you want to come in no I'll hang up Adam Tomkins would you want to come in thank you good morning everyone I want to take up the point that Mr Smith mentioned in his opening remarks a few minutes ago about the relationship in the bill between primary and secondary legislation so we've already heard that you have a number of concerns that the balance in the bill is not quite right could you just descend into a bit more detail about that this and give us chapter and verse as it were on the sorts of things that are not in the bill that should be or indeed conversely the sorts of things that are in the bill and should not be just so that we can understand this in as much detail as possible yes of course most of my comments will be around the disability benefits aspect of the bill key concerns and some of them were raised in the first panel will definitely be a clear purpose for each of the individual benefits that are covered and a clear definition of disability as well it's sort of implicit in the bill and the policy memorandum that we're using the equality act definition of disability in the face of the bill beyond that in our written evidence we've talked about principles of assessment while there definitely needs to be a balance with secondary legislation and an understanding that huge screeds of detail around how individual assessments are going to be undertaken is not the right place for that to be in the primary legislation we'd like to see so much more principles around assessments so key for us would be that assessments should be broadly paper based face-to-face where there's only a real need for that to be face-to-face that assessments should be undertaken by people with professional background or experience in the conditions that are the primary condition of the applicant and also at more detail and eligibility criteria should be in the face of the bill as well and is that also the view of the other witnesses? the balance of the bill I think we had a lot of trouble trying to understand exactly some of the motives of the bill it's obviously written in parliamentary language it isn't necessarily the expertise of McMillan we come to the bill with a lot of good faith and therefore we think that the bill allows the right judgments to be taken whether or not they are taken on the face of the bill or by Parliament and then by government ministers or by Parliament it's very difficult for an organisation and even within McMillan we have varying views that I will come to perhaps later on in this on that but as it stands the bill does a lot and it understands a lot of what we have brought forward in our submission on maybe it's more the reality of the cancer patients journey through the benefit system perhaps rather than the technical legislative nature of it it understands that real life, real society person's view of working their way through a new benefit system come back again briefly I agree with much of what Peter has said and definitely we are broadly very happy with the approach that the Government has taken in general on social security I suppose some of the key concerns about if it's not in primary legislation why we're concerned to the level of scrutiny that can be undertaken in secondary legislation and why, while it's good that the affirmative procedure and the super affirmative procedure appears to be being put in place for the development and passing of regulations Parliament will still not be able to amend regulations that are scrutinised we're still not hugely clear from the Government about the level of scrutiny that will be open to the public on individual regulations and stems from some of the experience that we've had with the UK system so in November where the Upper Tribunal changed some of the conditions around PIP for people in psychological distress and travel and reduced entitlement the Government changed that very quickly down in Westminster in February changed the regulations and we wouldn't like to see something like that happening to the system here so I suppose while we're very positive about the approach that the Government is taking is that future proofing as well which is our concern and why we'd like to see a wee bit more in the primary legislation including things like timescales for awards and things like that we're very much welcome to the fact that redeterminations have a timescale on the bill and we think that that should be expanded to other aspects of the system Thank you, final question for me would you like to see in the bill express provision for the creation of new benefits Yes I would like to see right now That would actually be helpful, yes please I couldn't give you a huge amount of detail of specific new benefits but I think it's a big gap in the bill that provision is not put there in terms of topping up existing benefits I have more detail about that we would definitely like to see the Government move to top up reserved benefits so ESA RAG where there was a £30 cut to people on ESA RAG bringing it to the level of GSA recently we'd like to see the Scottish Government move to mitigate that and put in place a top up there and again around the kind of changes to PIP that happened earlier on this year but in principle it's a gap in the bill that there's not provision to put in for new benefits I think if the committee thought that was the only way to do it we'd absolutely want the committee to do that we think if the committee the Parliament comes to a judgement that that can be done for instance on ESA RAG if the committee and the Parliament come to a decision that that can be done through other mechanisms really for Macmillan Cancer Support the chance to top up reinstate, recover you name it but to support the cancer patient who's just had their £30 a week loss we put it into your hands and we trust this committee and the Parliament like I said earlier we are not experts in legislation but we do believe that if that is the only mechanism we think it should be there but we also think the Parliament and the Government can support cancer patients using this tool to support them and therefore we leave it in your hands I think just for the record community it's important to note that there's a difference between the power to top up and the power to create new benefits and there is a provision in the bill about the power to create new benefits so it's important to bellows that distinction in mind but thank you very much, very helpful Thank you Jeremy Balford, do you want to come in? Thank you, good morning everybody I've got a couple of questions maybe start with Craig and then Craig and Peter and Hugh for the second question I mean my own experience is that those that come to DLA or now come to PIP who have mental health conditions are often the ones that find it most difficult and I suppose on that two areas just to explore and you would have heard in my first panel we had a bit of a discussion around advocacy and representation I've been trying to know particularly for the people that you're representing would you have a view on whether that should be on the face of the bill and the second one it gets probably down to the actual integrity of how it works if it's going to be in the bill or more likely within regulations do you think that that should be a separate category for those who have mental health issues rather than trying to fit them into categories which are predominantly around physical disability and my second question is perhaps aimed at Peter is in regard to residency at the moment there's no definition of residency of where you live within the bill and there may well be somebody who has got a diagnosis of cancer but for family reasons or whatever moves north or south or for border do you think that that needs to be covered so that we don't have to particularly if we've got a terminal illness maybe starting Aberdeen but moved to family in Carlisle does that need to be covered in the bill at somewhere as well? Yeah, of course so on the first point of advocacy yeah, we're very clear we'd like to see that a right independent advocacy for all individuals engaging with the social security system placed in the bill and we think that there's really good precedence for that in mental health law so the mental health act has a very similar provision where there's a right to advocacy for everyone who has a mental health disorder irrespective of if they're being treated under the act so yeah, that's a clear one that we'd like to see if we're really going to embed a human rights approach we think that there's a very good evidence base around the positive impact of advocacy and social security as we've heard earlier today we know that the Scottish Government funded a welfare advocacy pilot a couple of years ago which funded some local advocacy projects to deliver specialist welfare advice advocacy for individuals undertaking ESA and PIP applications and assessments and the impact of that on the individual's confidence and the quality of decision making was quite stark so we think that there's a really clear role for advocacy and that should be in the face of the bill as a right and we think that that would really be one aspect that can help embed a human rights approach to the system on the second point it's a really interesting question about a separate category for mental health under disability benefits and it's something that we've discussed a lot internally I suppose for us what's really key as in some ways that would be a very good approach to have a dedicated mental health stream that people would go through if that was a primary condition I suppose for us what's most important and what would probably alleviate the need for that would be the quality of assessments information gathering so for us I would say a fairly wide consensus across disability groups is the need to move away from the need to face assessment by default to one that's looking much more at paper based much more at a whole body of evidence around the individual and the impact the disability and their mental health problems are having on their life so we would like to see a system where that is really key and one of our slight concerns at the moment though we've had very good things from Government around this is where the liability for collection of that evidence lies we know in the current system where some people are charged for additional evidence where some people struggle to gather evidence on their path because of their condition there can be big problems in gaps of evidence which is then leading to people going to appeal and tribunal we would like to see the agency have a much stronger role in gathering that evidence on behalf of the individual where the individual has given consent and possibly identified key sources for that evidence so where quality evidence is being gathered from family and friends which I think is really important people who really know that individual and obviously the individual is really key their understanding of the impacts of their health complaint we think that could make a big difference to decision making and where face to face assessments possibly did have to happen we think they really should be undertaken by people with a mental health background if that's the primary condition and the experience of assessments because we know currently the experience of assessments can be very damaging for individuals who are undertaking them hopefully that answers your question sorry could I bring in Mr Robertson perhaps at this particular point because I know in the submission Sam H mentioned post traumatic stress disorder and they said they should perhaps be looked at but in your own submission you have considered this issue and not found sufficient evidence to recommend changing the criteria and also obviously the fact that the Scotland Act 2016 prevents the UK industries advisory council from providing advice to the Scottish ministers so there's kind of two prong question comments on what was said previously Sam H and do you have a view on how the council's functions can be provided in Scotland if they're not so easy I think that's quite a long thing so I'll start off with the mental health issues if that's ok, Chair and the thing is we have looked at it and the problem is that it's not a sickness benefit it's an actual fact what it is it's a compensation or a payment scheme for disabilities that are caused by work now in terms of most mental health disorders a chymdeithasio am 3 mornyn nhw'r cyfeirio'r cyfan. Nas wych i chi'n gweithio'r cyfan hyn am ymgylchedd ym groes gweithio'r cyfan gilio'r cyfan, gallad yn froedd. Cydyddwn ni wedi'i nóswdydd arnynnu cyfnod rhai ymddianydd imbryd, newydd yma i ddweud y casfodau yn arferwyr ac argyrch ar y gweithio sydd ymgylchedd gweithio'r cyfan. Yn y gweithio'r cyfan, yn gweld atio ein bod nhw'n dod oherwydd am rôl yng Ngheilig. so common among the general population. What we couldn't find is they were more than twice as likely to. If you're saying it's more likely than not to be caused by work, you have to get that kind of doubling, and it's just not there, unfortunately. The other thing, of course, is that the mental health disorders caused by work primarily are treatable. People can recover from them, and we don't want to be seen as being a disability because that sort of medicalise it, institutionalises it. What we want to do is empower people to actually feel they want to get back to work, they want to get well, rather than see themselves as victims. That said, the other issue is that it is preventable, and there's no link between the current industrial diseases system and the workplace and the employer, which means there's no real incentive. The Scottish Government could end up paying large sums of money in terms of benefit to these people, but the thing is what are you going to do to actually prevent it, and the scheme doesn't really do that. When we did look at it, we did look at PTSD and say, yes, that is different because it's a one-off issue, which can be very, very disabling, which is why we said it may not be applicable under the occupational diseases scheme, but it is applicable under the accident provision. If someone does have a PTSD and it's a one-off event, they can claim benefit under the accident provision. I think that's probably a reasonable approach to it. It is a different state of mental health issues. In terms of what kind of model you should have, you have a fantastic amount of occupational medical experience and skills in Scotland, just down the road with the Institute of Medicine. You've got effectively the father of occupational medicine. You and MacDonald, who sell up Scottish healthy working lives in Scotland, you've got professors of occupational medicine and so on, both in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The thing is that in setting up a committee to deal with it, it's not primarily the medical approach that you need. It's the epidemiologists, the people who are actually going to look at the evidence out there across the world and say, is that evidence showing that it's more likely than not for certain occupations to have developed this particular disease because of their work? The difficulty is if initially you use the same criteria in Scotland as there is in going to be in England and Wales and is applied in Northern Ireland, then if you've got two committees looking exactly the same diseases on a scientific basis and coming out with different decisions, you've got problems. That's more reflection of whether or not in the long term you're going to just use a 71-year-old system, which is what we've got in England and Wales, which was set up for a completely different purpose, a completely different workforce, before the priorities were the occupational health things we've got now or whether you're going to have your own one. Initially, I think there is an issue of how you're going to have two parallel committees looking exactly the same issues, but in the long term, I think it's a question of the Scottish Government actually deciding what kind of system it wants to evolve in for the modern Scottish workplace and have a group that's appropriate to that. What we've found is that having a mixture of academics, a lawyer and people who know the world of work, both as representatives of employers and employees has worked fantastically well and we very rarely have disputes within the council. I've been on since 1999 and we don't normally disagree because we go where the evidence takes us, whether we like it or not. I don't like the decision we made on teachers and healthcare workers and stress, but it's what the evidence actually shows us and the evidence won't be different whether it's being looked at in Scotland or in London and that's where we've got the problem. Thank you so much, Mr Robertson. I did see we would specifically get a question for you, but it's been very interesting because obviously you would not assume, but if you've looked at evidence and you have advice, then perhaps we're working together with the new social security agency to receive that advice. What you're saying is it's better to have them separate or would you be saying that you would be giving that advice if you were asked, I mean you've talked about post-traumatic stress disorder, I mean that is recognised now, so therefore if it was a disability you would be getting a benefit as they call it, so security and that respect, but the evidence would need to be provided by the committee. We've been told we can't give that advice to Scotland, I mean we can't really comment on that, that is what we have been told. Once Scotland takes over a devolution for industrial injuries benefit or as you're calling it, employee welcoming, a welcoming or calling it employee injury assistance, then we can no longer give advice, but the reality is the diseases, occupational diseases in Scotland are not going to be different from the occupational diseases in England, so I think it's the initial period when you're going to be mirroring the scheme in England and Wales where there are going to be reports coming from the industrial injury advisory council in England and Wales on issues and what Scotland is going to do, whether it's just going to accept these reports and put them into Scottish regulation, whether or not you're going to set up either as a subcommittee of the Social Security Committee or as a separate one, your own specialist one, that I mean we can't really advise you, but we can just say that because they're meant to be evidence-based, academic ones, you know, the problems would arise if they looked at the same things and got totally different conclusions. That shouldn't happen, but is it a useful use of Scotland's resources to do that? That's your decision, I'm afraid, sorry. Thank you very much for that, anyway. I'm sure we'll reflect on that in the committee as well. The next day, Alison Johnson, you wanted to come in. I'm sorry. Just for the record that I forgot to declare at the start, my apologies, that I did sit on PIP tribunals and DLA tribunals and I'm in recital PIP just for the record. Apologies for that. No, not at all. Thank you, Mr Balfour. Alison Johnson. Peter Haist, you commented earlier on the fact that the Social Security Bill has obviously a hugely important role to play, but its society at large can contribute to a good system. You referenced work going on at the spinal unit at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Glasgow, showing that there's a real opportunity to change how decisions are made for people with long-term conditions working closely with physios, nurseries and so on that could have a real impact on the way that we assess those conditions in the first place. Just wonder if you could give us a little bit more information on how that worked. Absolutely. I don't want to make up a new phrase, but I think that there's something about pre-advocacy that we could be interested in here. In our submission, we talked a lot of the work that we've done with the UK Government, sometimes defensively, sometimes positively, changing the nature of cancer patients' claims. A Macmillan phone line is now credited by the DWP to fast track those payments. The Scottish Government, the only part of the UK that's done this, helped fund Macmillan's benefits advisers in the five cancer centres across Scotland in 2008. This was about changing the nature of somebody's benefits journey. If you ever wanted to visit one in the western general, the staff literally go round, the benefit staff literally go round the chemotherapy ward and get them filling in the forms there. You know somebody can through chemo couldn't go up to the advice centre on the high street and things like that. The model at the Queen Elizabeth has tried to model itself on Macmillan's benefits model that says, we'll take the advice into the hospital, we'll fast track that form and we'll avoid all the face-to-face assessment because you can trust the judgment of the consultant and the CNS that this person going through chemotherapy is clearly not able to work. What the Queen Elizabeth Dun has built on that model that says, if we can surround the patient normally for Macmillan's cancer, but there is the long-term conditions, we can support them through that journey. I am really passionate about the changes there is in the nature of people going back to work. As the state retirement age rises to 68, cancer is going to be more and more of a working age illness. Maybe back in the day, if you got it when you were 60, well you were just about retirement age and you could get your pension but not anymore and so we need to get people back to work and that chimes nicely with the fact that survival rates are growing massively, the next Scottish cancer survival rates are out in January and once again they will show increased one, two, five and 10-year survival. We'd like them to be more but that's for another committee and I think if you can surround the cancer patient or the person with the long-term condition with physio, with vocational rehabilitation and all of that that brings within the health service, within their workplace, we can take them not necessarily just always out of the benefit system, but we can keep them away from the benefit system as long as possible and I think there's so many roles for so many professionals in our society to support the person with the illness to not need always the support of the benefit system. I'm going to just address a question in particular to Craig Smith when you were asked when the session opened about the strengths of the bill, I think you actually specifically mentioned the charter. I'd just like your views on whether or not you think the bill provides a framework of rights and a mechanism of address that a benefit applicant could rely on if they felt that their rights weren't being fully respected. No, not at the moment. I think very much welcome the fact that there will be a charter and the bill stipulates that there will be a charter and we'd very much like to see that co-produced with the experience panels but with a wider audience of stakeholders and something I reflect on and our submission is we'd like that to reflect the fact that over 30 per cent of people receiving PIP have a mental health problem as a main condition so our mental health population needs to be reflected. To the main point about redress, that is one of our concerns so as we're very very much welcome the principles as they're written the legislative promise that there will be a charter developed and what is currently missing is avenues for redress and if we want to have a system base in human rights we need to have accountability and scrutiny and redress as well so I think there needs to be a wee bit of clarity around are these principles systemic or are these principles for the individual? Is a charter going to be for enshrining these rights and principles for the individual and if they are, which they should do, there must be an avenue for individuals to complain or take legal redress where they feel that their rights under the principles and subsequently under the charter aren't being adhered to by the state, by the social security agency. We're hopeful that that can be developed and we'd like to see further clarity from the Government around that. I think it's a concern not just raised by us but quite wide across the disability third sector around there is a wee bit of gaps there around redress and that's a really crucial one actually people need to be able to get redress where they feel that their rights have been breached. Thank you. Anybody else? Ruth Maguire wants to come in with a supplementary. Thank you convener. I suppose it's just following on from what Craig Smith said there. If the charter was to be legally enforceable the obvious disadvantage to me would feel like it's going to have to be drafted as a legal document and that detracts from the purpose of it which was for it to be accessible and easy to read and not legalistic and co-produced as you suggested so you want it. Would you reflect on that at all? I think that's a big challenge and I think it's a balance that needs to be got. I can't say I've got the answer. I do think we would err on the fact that it does need to have mechanisms of redress in some way but it does need to be accessible. The charter should be for everyone using the system and the system itself and we're very clear that it should be co-produced so it's a really good question it's a really difficult one to answer we wouldn't like it to become window dressing to system and there's no and I'm certainly not suggesting that is the intention or that is what would happen but we have seen charters in other legislation which maybe haven't had the impact that they could have had so it's how to get that balance but I think that redress still is quite a key one and into your right to redress. Ben Macpherson. Thank you, convener. Peter Hasse is just interested to get your thoughts on this question. You stated in your or Macmillan stated in their evidence about the fast tracking element for those who qualify and are living with terminal illness such as cancer other similar organisations for example Maricuri have suggested that perhaps there should be mention of the fast tracking element in the primary legislation do you have a view about where or if such a right to fast tracking or statement about fast tracking should be included? Peter Hasse. Thank you. I think it would be when we've been thinking about this I can't think of a situation where I've ever come across where people don't just normally accept that terminal is different from other forms and we push the UK government all the time to speed up payments all the time but we have most success when we're talking about terminal illness and I think most people would just normally accept that the system would have a different criteria and so many Scots despite the brilliant work of detect cancer early are diagnosed very close to the end of life and I think most people accept that a terminal diagnosis that is six months and very very often a lot less than six months should have a shorter timeframe built into the system than I say a normal diagnosis but you get my point. I'm not clear that that has to be because I think the nature of terminal illnesses as alluded by Pauline McNeill will change over the period of time and therefore I think you wouldn't want to tie your hands too hard but I still I think this committee in the Parliament will sound a very strong message that every system that there's ever been accepts that terminal illnesses has to be fast tracked ahead of the others. We'd love all benefits to be processed within 24 hours for everybody but I think it's pretty clear that some of the 70 targets that are set up are being met. We would not want the bill to do away with some of the targets that have been set recently by Westminster and hard fought. A couple of my colleagues Emma Cross and Grace Brownfield have fought so hard for years at Westminster to get these targets put in place but we don't perceive for a moment that this bill would do anything other than keep going with those targets and keep publishing those statistics so that you as a committee can hold ministers feet to the fire when those quarterly statistics are published the way we currently do at Westminster. Thank you. Ruth Maguire, did you wish to come in on advocacy? Did you imagine I could do? Sorry, I had your name down here under advocacy. It was the first panel, convener. To be honest, I think that the panel have reflected on advocacy and advice in their evidence already, so thank you for that. Remissal of me, could I just ask, you know, obviously this question has been asked in numerous occasions as well and obviously it's between the primary and secondary legislation in the face of the bill. Having had evidence from numerous groups et cetera, most of them say that they're particular one they would like on the face of the bill. Can you explain why it's so important to have it in that type of legislation rather than the legislation that's been put forward at the moment in the bill that it's easier to change rather than going through the full process of Parliament if it's actually on the face of the bill? Could you maybe explain to us in respect, in simple terms? I'll give it to Craig Smith first. I think that while regulations certainly are easier to change and quicker to change, for us the concern is the scrutiny aspect and that's really key for us. So, while, of course, primary legislation is a much more, it's a longer process, that's not necessarily a bad thing, it allows proper public consultation and it allows Parliament to amend any changes as well as just passing or rejecting them and for us that is really the key thing. So, that's why, again, we fully understand that in a complex social security system you can't have every single detail on the face of a bill that will become unmanageable. That's why for us it's really important that it is the key eligibility and assessment and timescales to key principles to provide that framework for the further regulation to go. But for us, scrutiny is a real concern for us and the experience, as I said, of changes to PIP in the past through regulation, which we felt were very damaging changes without any public scrutiny, is a kind of a warning for us that we need to future proof the legislation. And while, again, we very much welcome the tone of debate actually from the Government, and actually fairly cross-party tone of debate around social security in Scotland since before the publication of the bill, we don't know that if that level of discourse is always going to be there and it's important that safeguards are put in place and that's why we feel the balance still isn't quite there between the primary and secondary legislation. So, scrutiny is really important for us. We believe that scrutiny, obviously, if it's on the face of the bill, the scrutiny will come along. Even if you have an independent scrutiny board, you don't think that's enough. We definitely agree that there should be an independent scrutiny board, but having that public level of scrutiny is really important for us, too. Peter Hasse, do you want to come in on that particular one and then Ben Macpherson? For me, I certainly wouldn't want to contradict that. We haven't asked for this because maybe it's just because I'm so long in the tooth now, but I'm fairly sure there'll be more bills coming along in front of this committee on social security as the years go on. The scrutiny that Macmillan will bring to this for cancer patients will be a committee in front of the Parliament, outside the Parliament building, so we haven't called for things on the face of the bill because the nature of cancer is changing so much and in a good way that we'd be concerned if we tried to pin up every single one of our beliefs on the face of this bill and then come back to you in six months' time going, we've got a new one. I'm not an expert about putting some of the vase bill and I'm not speaking against it, but we're strongly of the belief that it's non-stop the changes to the welfare system where cancer patients, you know, the survival rates are incredible. I told you that five years ago. Something might even change in the bill that should concern Mr Robertson's committee. You never know. I'm just bringing you back into that, obviously, with the, you know, the post-matic stress, that type of thing. That's the feeling that I've had from a number of contributors. Things are changing all the time in the welfare and it would take so long if it was on the face of the bill, but that's for the committee to make up their mind when they put it forward. Do you want to come in, Ben MacPherson? Peter, just very quickly, I know a number of you were in the audience listening to the first panel where there was some discussion about a commitment from the minister to use the superaffirmative procedure for secondary legislation. Would that reassure you? Definitely very welcome. It does provide that greater level of debate over regulation. I'd still say that I would need to reflect on that a wee bit more. I think that there's still certain areas that we would like to see in the face of the bill, but I think that that's a very welcome step if the minister has signed the road down that route to take the superaffirmative approach. Thank you, Mr MacPherson. Can I just thank the panel very much indeed for the evidence and close the meeting and then to private session now. Thank you.