Committee
Social Justice and Social Security Committee 21 March 2024
21 Mar 2024 · S6 · Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Item of business
Extra Costs of Disability
Dr Laura Robertson (The Poverty Alliance)
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I will give the committee a bit of context about the diaries. As Chirsty McFadyen mentioned, the diaries looked specifically at needs that were not being met for a group of six disabled people who took part in that section of our research. Of the six participants, one was in employment, one was a student, four were receiving universal credit or employment support allowance alongside personal independence payment, and one was receiving adult disability payment. I will start with a summary of the diary participants’ experiences. Four of the six participants said that they were going without basic essentials every week of the five-week diary exercise, and five of the six participants said that they were finding it quite challenging or very difficult to manage on their incomes every week. I will touch on a case study involving a man with a physical disability who uses a wheelchair and is in receipt of personal independence payment with high mobility and middle care. He also receives employment and support allowance. In his diaries, he mainly reported finding it very difficult to manage on his income. He had a range of additional costs for his disability such as taxis and energy, and some of the others are outlined in the briefing; I should say that the cost of energy was cited by all six participants as one of the highest costs. He also had to pay for specific treatments and hire people to help with household cleaning and other household tasks. I will give an example of what he was sharing in his diary every week. He experienced a very cold time in January and February, and, because of the bad weather, he had to use his storage heaters frequently. He recorded in his diary that, in one week, the cost of using his storage heaters came to £100. He shared that, because of the high cost of food and heating that particular week, he had to borrow money from his family, as his income through employment and support allowance, alongside what he got through PIP, was not sufficient. In most of his diary entries, the man reported not being able to cover the costs of basic essentials such as food and energy every week; indeed, one quote from his diary was that he often had to make difficult choices between heating and eating. Another effect of such high costs was the need to cut back on social activities outside his home, so there were obviously effects in terms of isolation and loneliness.
In the same item of business
The Convener
SNP
Our next agenda item is a presentation on the additional costs of disability in Scotland. The committee commissioned a piece of research on the topic in Marc...
Chirsty McFadyen (University of Strathclyde)
Thank you very much for having us. I will start and then pass over to Laura Robertson to talk about some of our work. For context, I should say that I have ...
Dr Laura Robertson (The Poverty Alliance)
I will give the committee a bit of context about the diaries. As Chirsty McFadyen mentioned, the diaries looked specifically at needs that were not being met...
Chirsty McFadyen
I will talk a bit more about how we have broken down the data. First, on additional spending for those with more severe disabilities, we see similar results ...
Dr Robertson
I will talk the committee through two of the case studies from participants. I will touch on some of the consequences for their day-to-day lives while they s...
Chirsty McFadyen
I will conclude by saying that data on spending from the living costs and food survey shows that disabled households in Scotland spend slightly more in essen...
The Convener
SNP
I apologise, because I introduced you as Christy when your name is actually Chirsty. My humble apologies to you, Chirsty. The research that you have given ...
Chirsty McFadyen
One of the main things that I spoke about is the point that, if we want an evidence-driven policy approach, we need more evidence. Some surveys in Scotland, ...
The Convener
SNP
Dr Robertson, would you like to comment on that?
Dr Robertson
We already referenced other qualitative research from the Glasgow Disability Alliance. Inclusion Scotland also published research last year on the impacts of...
The Convener
SNP
That is helpful. I will open questions up to committee members.
Marie McNair
SNP
Thanks for your time this morning. In your conclusion, you have recommended that careful consideration be given to “how to measure additional costs of disab...
Chirsty McFadyen
Yes, definitely. We have done some work on learning disabilities at the Fraser of Allander Institute, and some of the work that we have done on data has been...
Marie McNair
SNP
That would be great. Thank you.
Jeremy Balfour
Con
It is helpful to read this report in the light of the other report that the Fraser of Allander Institute did recently on disability and employment. The repor...
Chirsty McFadyen
That comes back to the commitment to evidence-based policy making. We have done a short-term study, but more work could be done to understand the issue bette...
Dr Robertson
From the Poverty Alliance’s perspective, outside this research that we have been doing, we would call for an increase in incomes for people with a disability...
Jeremy Balfour
Con
I suppose that that is the issue that I am trying to work out, Dr Robertson. Personally, I probably fall into income group 5, but if you increase adult disab...
Dr Robertson
Yes. The example that was discussed in the previous evidence session was the Scottish child payment and the learning from that. That is a passported benefit ...
John Mason
SNP
I was struck by figure 1 on page 4 of our briefing, which showed that transport costs, in particular, were quite starkly different, which follows on from Jer...
Chirsty McFadyen
I think that it is a combination of things. The first thing that stands out to me is that we have UK-level evidence that disabled people travel less than non...
John Mason
SNP
So, the message is that we need a much more in-depth and bigger survey. I think that we are all agreed on that. Who should do that? Is it best for the Govern...
Jeremy Balfour
Con
The Fraser of Allander Institute. Laughter.
Chirsty McFadyen
It is difficult to say. What I always come back to is that, as long as something is well resourced, that is what is important. If a survey is well designed a...
John Mason
SNP
You said that there is a split between whether people’s activities are affected a lot or a little. Is that too basic? Do we need to go into a lot more detail...
Chirsty McFadyen
Based on the data that we have, we should not be splitting things any further, because it is already very difficult to understand. Jeremy Balfour mentioned s...
John Mason
SNP
Did you want to come in, Dr Robertson? Most of my questions were aimed at Ms McFadyen.
Dr Robertson
No. Chirsty is the expert on the questions that you asked.
The Convener
SNP
Chirsty, I believe that Jeremy Balfour was offering up your services again for further research. I now invite Bob Doris to come in.
Bob Doris
SNP
Thank you, convener, and thank you, Mr Balfour, for the namecheck. In the earlier session, I suggested an imaginary extra £10 million. It has doubled in the ...