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An example is how much is spent on mailings. We know that the agency has quite a significant cost attached to simply mailing out to individuals, which is why it is looking at changing the processes to have more email traffic, for example. Those areas are analysed and we recognise that that is a cost that we can make savings on, and indeed the agency already has a workstream to reduce those costs.

I find the minister very approachable and accommodating in the conversations that we have had. It remains to be seen whether that follows through to the minister making policy decisions that the Scottish Government would support. I have had a number of meetings with him over a variety of issues. For example, I have discussed the UC review with him as well as the calls that the Scottish Government has made in relation to the five-week wait and split payments, and we have offered to share with him the work that we have already done on Scottish choices for UC. We remain ready to engage with him on the work that he will be doing on disability benefits, too.

From what I hear from disabled people’s organisations—they can well speak for themselves, of course—there is a slight concern that the minister’s genuine interest and knowledge in this area may not follow through to policy changes that would allow support to disabled people to be increased. That could have an impact on the Scottish Government, and I hope that the minister will find a way for us to have discussions about those types of impact before he makes decisions rather than after.

There is a number of layers to that. We can start with the evaluation of benefits that we have undertaken to date. There have been 14 evaluations across disability and the five family payments. The disability evaluation showed that we have reduced the barriers to applying for benefits through improving support and making changes to the application process, which I hope that the committee finds to be a welcome change. The five family payments evaluation demonstrated a significant positive impact and showed that the investment that we are making will assist in mitigating the most harmful effects of poverty.

We have been able to provide for people who are in work and people who are out of work—as the committee knows, a large number of people are in in-work poverty. We have evidence that the Scottish child payment is reducing poverty, positively contributing to reducing financial pressures on households and reducing debt, material deprivation and food insecurity.

Work that has been undertaken through the Scottish Government and the Institute for Fiscal Studies indicates that changes that were made to the tax and welfare system in previous budgets have contributed to reducing inequality and targeting financial support to those who need it most. That report points to social security benefits promoting equality for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities, who experience higher rates of poverty.

We are seeing improving health outcomes from the early evaluation of the Scottish child payment, best start foods and best start grants, which are enabling parents to provide more and better-quality food for their children. Professor Linda Bauld has done work to look at the impact of social security, and it showed a very positive evaluation.

We are looking at and acting on that. Yesterday, when the First Minister and I were at the whole-family support event, I was in a workshop with the chief statistician about the work that he is taking forward to ensure that the Scottish Government has access to DWP data, to allow us to drill into such information, which would provide further evidential support and information and help with policy development. I am happy to provide further details of the work that the chief statistician has done.

I know that a number of other projects are being worked on. We are having to work with the DWP and HMRC to get the data, but both the UK and Scottish Governments are working on that. We can provide further information about what we are doing to support evaluation and the evidential base, which will help us with policy formation in the future.

You are quite right to point out the cost—before I have mentioned it—of a run-on, for example, but we also have to bear in mind that the legislative foundation of the Scottish child payment is being eligible for universal credit. Someone who is not eligible for universal credit is not eligible for the Scottish child payment, because of how the legislation was developed. We developed that foundation because it was the quickest way to deliver the Scottish child payment. Any changes would have to take advantage of the legislation that the committee scrutinised and change the legislative basis for the Scottish child payment. After that had been done, you could look at changes that allowed a run-on, but that is not possible under the current system.

Thank you.

As we develop the budget for this year, we would welcome submissions on these issues not only from other parties—or indeed those who are in no party, Mr Balfour—but from a number of organisations. You pointed to the work on children aged zero to one. I know that Save the Children has submitted evidence on that aspect. We have received calls from other organisations on how to make changes both within and outwith social security. I reassure all those organisations that I take such calls very seriously. The committee will not be surprised to hear that if I totalled up the amount that people wish us to spend on social security and all other aspects of my portfolio, never mind what is in other people’s portfolios, it would not be possible to spend that, but we take those calls very seriously. We look to see what our response would be and to see whether there are ways that we can spend the money that we are already spending, not just in social security but in other areas, more effectively.

We are undertaking work. As I alluded to earlier, the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecasting for disability benefits, and indeed other benefits, is based on a number of assumptions about the growth and reasons for expenditure. The increase in the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecast to the end of the decade in the main is due to factors common across the UK, which I am sure will not be surprising to the committee. We are looking at the increasing demand for carer and disability benefits, the impacts of the increased cost of living crisis and the rises in payments due to uprating.

The Scottish Government has also undertaken work to identify the different drivers of demand for devolved disability benefits in Scotland and it is our intention to publish that analysis in autumn 2025. We know that some of the reason why we have increasing demand in Scotland in particular is that we have developed a system in which we encourage people to take up support and in which there is less stigma. That is part of the reason why there is more of an increase in Scotland than is anticipated in the rest of the UK. There is also an impact from the number of claims that are now being received to do with mental health or behavioural conditions.

Those are some of the underlying issues that underpin the assumptions in the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s work and the work that the Government has been undertaking.

I have looked at that evidence, which reiterates the points that many organisations have made to the Scottish Government and directly to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government about their desire to see changes in the tax system in Scotland. I pointed earlier to the decisions that the Scottish Government has already taken on income tax since devolution that are different from the current UK set-up. Those are estimated to raise up to £1.7 billion in additional income in 2025-26 in comparison with what would have been raised if we had implemented the same rates and bands as the rest of the UK. That demonstrates that the Scottish Government is willing to look at, and indeed has implemented, a more progressive and ambitious taxation system.

The First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government have set out in Scotland’s tax strategy our next steps in our approach to taxes. We think that it is very important that taxpayers and, in particular, businesses have some knowledge and confidence about what will happen. That is why we are providing stability in income tax for the remainder of this session of Parliament and there is no intention to increase the number of bands or rates of Scottish income tax. As I have said, without sounding too repetitive, if the committee will forgive me, I am sure that there will be discussions in which proposals will come forward on other changes that could be made, but the Government has been very clear on the Scottish tax strategy and some of the points where we felt that it was important to provide taxpayers and businesses during the cost of living crisis with some certainty for the remainder of the session of Parliament.

Let us consider winter payments in the round. In my introductory remarks, I mentioned in passing some of the differences that we have made. For example, the child winter heating payment does not exist in the rest of the UK. Also, our winter heating payment for low-income people is a guaranteed income, which is very different from what happens in the DWP system.

We have used the devolution of winter heating payments in the round to make different choices in those aspects. It is challenging if, while we attempt to move ahead with our policies, there is a handbrake turn from the UK Government on its policies, particularly if there are repercussions—as has been the case with some of the winter heating payments—for the Scottish Government’s in-year budget and not just for the future. That makes things challenging, and we have to bear that in mind as we make our decisions.

I hope that that gives a demonstration of the difference that we can make with devolved social security when it comes to the winter payments. It is still important to use those powers responsibly within our fixed budget and to make choices that we think will deliver support to pensioners, who are most likely to be struggling.