Examination of Witnesses (Questions 840
- 859)
MONDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2007
MR STEWART
MAXWELL MSP, MR
JAMIE HAMILTON,
MR MIKE
PALMER AND
MR NEIL
LANGHORN
Q840 Mr Davidson:
Are Wales and Northern Ireland then also worse?
Mr Langhorn: Wales has also had
a better than average decrease but not quite as good as Scotland.
I could not honestly tell you the reasons why that is.
Q841 Chairman:
When you say we started from the worst, you mean during the Conservative
years and after Labour changing things?
Mr Langhorn: From the 1998-99
baseline Scotland was worse than the UK average, as was Wales,
as was Northern Ireland.
Q842 Mr Davidson:
Goodness me, that is worth repeating, Scotland was worse off under
the Tories, but then the changes Labour introduced, and that is
coming from the Scottish Executive. I think that is particularly
welcome today and we can all agree on that. Do not spoil it!
Mr Maxwell: You would know this
as well as we do, historically there have been levels of poverty
in Scotland which have exceeded many of the areas, but by no means
all the areas in England and clearly those changes had an impact,
there is no denying it, it is just a fact.
Q843 Mr Devine:
Stewart, we have heard a few calls in particular from representatives
from Argyll and Clyde and they were very clear there should be
a different strategy between urban deprivation and rural poverty;
I am sure you would agree with that. I am wondering if you assessed
the effectiveness of the Rural Services Priority Area programme
and what you have found with regards to that and do you intend
to continue with it?
Mr Maxwell: I understand the argument
that is being made, many of the local authorities in rural areas
have made the same argument. Much of the concern has been expressed
around the Index of Multiple Deprivation. I have to say, generally
speaking, there has been a slight misunderstanding about the purpose
of the Index of Multiple Deprivation.
Q844 Mr Devine:
Basically, your colleagues in the Scottish Government are wrong,
those who represent rural areas?
Mr Maxwell: No, not at all. The
purpose of the Index of Multiple Deprivation, of course, was to
do what it says on the tin, to tackle areas of multiple deprivation.
In rural areas, clearly, at the local area level, it does not
identify that because it is individual spots of deprivation as
opposed to multiple deprivation in concentrated areas. The other
thing I would say about the Index of Multiple Deprivation, of
course, is that it accounts for less than 1% of GAE, for example.
There is a lot of money going in in terms of local authority spend
and local health spending, et cetera, which is not in any way
affected by the Index. The other thing, of course, is, though,
having said that, clearly we do accept there is deprivation in
rural areas and many people are as poor in rural areas as urban
areas. We take that on board. That is why the Cabinet Secretary
for Finance, John Swinney, met with a number of island and highland
leaders around 28 October to discuss some of these problems and
we were just at the beginning, post that meeting, of looking at
the possibility of establishing a complementary mechanism for
looking at rural poverty.
Q845 Mr Devine:
You are adopting a different approach?
Mr Maxwell: We are saying that
effectively we think the Index of Multiple Deprivation is quite
right to use in the way that it serves a very useful purpose in
identifying areas of multiple deprivation but I accept the argument—and
we do accept the argument—that we also have to look at the
problems in rural areas so we are beginning to look at some complementary
method of identifying the problems in rural areas. I do recognise
the difficulties that rural areas face but we are at the very
early stages of that.
Q846 Mr Davidson:
Could I pick up on a point about the rural poverty, if you do
not mind, just following that up. When we were speaking to the
previous people from COSLA, one of the points that we raised with
them was, to some extent, poverty of service in rural areas is
because many of them when they had a political choice between
keeping the rates low or improving the services, they chose to
keep the rates low and, therefore, services were impoverished.
Therefore, to what extent is the fact that services in rural areas
are poor as a result of the political choices that were previously
made by, presumably, Tories pretending to be independents rather
than anything else as distinct from the difficulties of being
in rural areas themselves? Very often there is grant allocation
additional to rural areas to take account of the difficult factors
they have got.
Mr Maxwell: Certainly your final
point is correct, there are number of rural-specific grants which
are there to try and deal with some of the transport and housing
difficulties which rural areas and, particularly, remotely rural
areas find themselves at, that is certainly true. It is a combination
of both really, choices made by local authorities because, clearly,
different local authorities have that freedom of choice as to
how they invest in local services or they keep local taxation
at a particular level, that is a choice that local government
has at the moment. I think how big an impact that has and what
the balance is between that and just the problems of rurality
itself, I am not sure I can answer here today, but both influence
the outcome that many of the rural communities find themselves
in.
Q847 Mr Davidson:
You have frozen council tax but that has frozen the inequalities.
If you move on to a universal charge or, as I understand, it the
local income tax set across Scotland as a whole, presumably those
authorities that have got low incomes at the moment, if it is
evened up, might end up getting more money from their own taxpayers.
Presumably, in those circumstances that might allow them to overcome
some of these difficulties without direct action from either yourselves
or us. Does that seem a fair possibility?
Mr Maxwell: That is speculation,
I am not sure. Without seeing the figures I think we would have
to wait and see how it came out but, clearly, if a local authority
gained a substantial amount of extra money, then it would have
more opportunity to invest in local services. Whether or not that
is the case we will have to wait and see. The Bill has yet to
be introduced in terms of changing from council tax to local income
tax.
Q848 Mr Davidson:
You have not modelled any of this, have you?
Mr Maxwell: You would have to
ask the Cabinet Secretary for Finance in terms of that kind of
modelling.
Q849 Mr Davidson:
He is not here, you see. That is why I am asking you.
Mr Maxwell: I know that, I appreciate
he is not here. He is the government minister responsible for
the introduction of that particular piece of legislation.
Q850 Mr Davidson:
I am reasoning it in the context of the impact that it would have
on local services in rural areas to deal with poverty. It is a
reasonable point in these circumstances.
Mr Maxwell: Yes, but we have made
clear that local authorities and local government will not lose
out in a change from council tax to local income tax, so I see
no reason to suspect it would have any negative impact. What kind
of positive impact it might have in some areas, as I say, we will
have to wait and see.
Q851 Chairman:
Let us say, for example, in Glasgow we collect the business rates
and council tax and out of that I think £60 million goes
to subsidise other councils in Scotland. You have a policy of
local income tax, if there is going to be a surplus amount there
because more rich people live in that area, would you use that
money in other councils or would it be strictly within those local
government areas?
Mr Maxwell: I am not saying anything
of the sort at the moment. Clearly, the Bill has not yet been
introduced to Parliament, the consultation has not started on
those proposals and in its progress through Parliament I am sure
many of these areas will be debated and discussed. The Cabinet
Secretary for Finance will lay out our proposals when he publishes
the Bill.
Q852 Mr Devine:
As you are aware, Stewart, fuel poverty is defined basically as
spending more than 10% of your income on heating for your house.
I wonder what progress has been made towards the target of eradicating
fuel poverty by 2016?
Mr Maxwell: It is an extremely
challenging target. I think, to be fair, the target is to eradicate
fuel poverty by 2016 wherever practicable because, clearly, there
are a number of properties where it is very, very difficult because
of the design and the age of the property. It is not possible,
for instance, to put cavity wall insulation in some properties
because of solid wall construction. There are a number of difficulties
surrounding some of the design of some of the properties we have.
The progress towards 2016 in terms of eradicating fuel poverty
unfortunately, here again, it is out of our hands in many ways
because the power over energy prices and actual income levels—again
we go back to the tax and benefits system—is a reserved
power of the UK Government. Effectively, the amount of money you
earn and the price of the fuel you buy are the big determinants
in terms of whether or not you fall within fuel poverty and we
do not have power over those. We are doing everything we can in
terms of the programmes, the central heating programme, the Warm
Deal programme and benefits advice, things like that, but effectively
it is about income levels and about the price of fuel.
Mr Devine: Could I talk to you about
the central heating programme, I know you would share my concern.
Four weeks ago the waiting list for pensioners in Scotland was
10,850, one was a constituent of mine who had no hot water, no
heating, no cooking facilities. The system was condemned by Scottish
Gas at the end of August. He was written to and told that he will
not have the system replaced until April next year. Another one
of my constituents in a relatively similar situation three weeks
ago was given a letter from Scottish Gas saying that she will
not have the system replaced until June. What we are talking about
in a vast majority of these cases is pensioners, nearly 11,000,
possibly two pensioners in a house, going right through the winter
without any heating, any hot water, any cooking facilities. We
are putting these people's lives at risk and I know you will agree
with that. I would be interested in what is the total budget for
this system. I know you put an extra £7 million into it last
week, but I have seen from your budget that what you have talked
about when asked what the delivery is in the next three years
is a standstill budget. For the next three years what we are talking
about in real terms is a cut in a budget that is actually not
delivering at the moment. I was wondering if there was any discussion
at the Scottish Government level saying, "If Scottish Gas
cannot deliver, we cannot allow basically this potential tragedy
that we all know could happen over the winter to take place".
Can we bring in a different company? Can we be given guidance
to people who are on this waiting list that, for example, if they
go and get a local plumber or whoever to come in and install the
system that a bill can be sent to you or can we write to these
people saying there is a maximum here that you can spend with
your local supplier, because I can see us potentially facing a
disaster?
Q853 Mr Davidson:
Yes or no?
Mr Maxwell: That was a lot of
questions in there. Effectively, I will try and go back to the
start on that, the central heating programme has consistently
since it was introduced had a waiting list of around about six
months. In fact, it was eight months at the start for the first
couple of years and then it dropped to about six. It has been
between five and six months on average since those first couple
of years. The position is the same today as it has been in the
last few years.
Q854 Mr Devine:
No.
Mr Maxwell: Yes.
Q855 Mr Devine:
I will come back to you.
Mr Maxwell: The second thing I
would say is that the programme was never an emergency replacement
system, it never was a system that was designed to immediately
replace your central heating when it broke down, that was not
the programme under the previous administration nor is it the
current programme. In terms of the situation we have at the moment,
clearly we inherited a problem which is really quite extensive
in terms of the number of people who are waiting. I have a great
deal of sympathy for the example you gave and the example many
members have written to me about, both MPs and MSPs, about people
who are suffering because their system has been condemned. The
one thing I would say about that is—and people have asked
me—Scottish Gas should not condemn the system until they
get a new one in, but there are health and safety regulations
about this. There is no way we could have a situation where a
Corgi-registered inspector went in and found the system was unsafe
to leave it unsafe for however long it takes to get a new system
in. That is just unacceptable, so the condemning of a system is
purely on the grounds that it is unfit for purpose and unsafe.
That is entirely right and proper. In terms of what we have done
this year, the original installation rate for 2007-08 was 12,000
systems. I took a decision early on within the first month or
so of taking up this job to increase that to 13,500 systems in
2007-08 to try to tackle some of the backlog.[1]
Clearly, there is a problem as we near winter, when people get
very worried about relatives, I can understand that entirely.
We have taken a recent decision, as you mentioned, to put another
£7 million into this year's programme to try and bring forward
many of the people who are waiting to get their systems as quickly
as possible. Many of them will get it before Christmas, I am glad
to say. However, I really do not think it would be either sensible
or financially sustainable for us to say to people, "Just
go out and get a system and then send us the bill". One,
the costs would be uncontrollable for a start and, two, we want
to make sure that the systems that are put in place are of a sufficient
standard for the people who are getting these systems and, therefore,
we make very stringent rules about the standard of systems that
are put in place. We would lose control over that if we did as
you suggested. I think, frankly, it would be very, very difficult
to sustain an argument which said we should just let people put
in the systems they want because, clearly, that would allow people
who had enough money to put in a system now to go ahead and do
it and those who did not have enough money would be left again.
We do not do it on that basis, we do it on a basis of when you
apply you are on a list and you will be taken in order, with a
few exceptions, in particular medical problems and if you have
evidence of that, you can be dealt with sooner. What we have done
in terms of the extra money is to try and help those who are in
particular difficulty, the one you mentioned for example, because
some people have no heating but they have got hot water, but there
are others who have no heating or hot water or cooking facilities,
as you mentioned. Scottish Gas have told us that they have much
of the information that will allow us to identify those particular
individuals and bring them forward on the waiting list but without
pushing other people further back. That is what the additional
money is there to do and that will lead to us putting in place,
as I said, just over 15,000 systems in the current year. I have
also said, and I said it when I appeared before the Local Government
and Communities Committee in the Scottish Parliament, that we
are reviewing the system, we are looking at the system because,
given from day one there has always been this huge waiting list
and that every single winter there are the same problems, complaints
and difficulties. Of course it is clear that fuel poverty is not
declining in Scotland, in fact recent evidence is suggesting it
is on the rise. Therefore, we have to review that programme to
see whether we can make sure that it is delivering in terms of
fuel poverty, make sure it does not disadvantage particular groups
and make sure, hopefully, we can reduce waiting lists rather than
make them longer. Those are very difficult questions. No previous
administration so far has come up with an answer to that, we will
do our best to try and resolve this particular problem. It is
very difficult. In terms of the budget, in a very, very tight
budget settlement we have managed to maintain the budget over
the next three years for these particular programmes.
Q856 Mr Devine:
There is no increase, it is a standstill budget.
Mr Maxwell: It is a standstill
budget for three years, we published those figures recently. It
is a very, very tight settlement, I have to say, and in the light
of that clearly there are very difficult decisions we have to
take. We have managed to maintain that budget over the three years
and I think in terms of what we do in the future, that is what
the review is about and we will take decisions in light of that
review about where we go with it.
Q857 Mr Devine:
If you are now saying you have upped this to 15,000 a year, that
is 1,300 a month, max, we are still set with 10,800, I understand
there are 500 a month getting added to it, so by Christmas we
are maybe down to 10,000, so there are potentially around 10,000
pensioners sitting with condemned heating systems in Scotland
for Christmas. You mentioned the fact about the previous administration,
the highest of the previous administration was at, I understand,
4,300 and the waiting list was four months.
Mr Maxwell: That is not correct,
Jim.
Q858 Mr Devine:
I do not think we should argue about the past. Collectively what
we need to be recognising is that we have a major problem here
and I do not want to make a cheap political point, but it is how
we sort this, how do I go back to my constituents and say, "I
met with the minister today and I think we have solution"?
We need to put our heads together to get a solution because, if
we do not, quite frankly pensioners' lives are going to be at
risk.
Mr Maxwell: Jim, I am not going
to argue about the past either, but the fact remains that the
waiting lists have been between six and eight months for the entire
period of the programme and this waiting list did not suddenly
mysteriously appear on 3 May. It was there and we inherited it,
that is just a fact. In terms of the figures, we intend to do
15,000 this year, so we are tackling it in terms of making sure
that we get more through this year and as many possible through
before the worst onset of winter. We are doing our best to try
and cope with the situation we have inherited. There is also,
of course, a question of capacity. Almost irrespective of how
much money you threw at it, you would not necessarily have the
capacity to deliver in terms of central heating systems. The point
about 500 additional a month, I think you said, that is 500 applications
which do not necessarily mean an additional 500 people are on
the list. Is that correct?
Mr Hamilton: Certainly an application
does not always mean a system is installed.
Q859 Mr Devine:
Is it fair to say that we are still talking coming up to Christmas
about around 10,000 pensioners in this situation, even being generous
with your figures?
Mr Maxwell: As I have said to
you several times, Jim, the situation we inherited is a particularly
difficult one. We have twice invested additional money this particular
year to take it from the original estimate from the previous administration,
12,000, up to over 15,000 so we are going to be installing around
about an extra 3,000 in the current year over what was planned
by the previous administration. I think that is a good news story.
It does not mean that people will get a central heating system
tomorrow if it breaks down today. It never was intended or planned
that way. We will do everything in our power to speed up the whole
process and, as I say, we are targeting those in most difficulty
without delaying those who are currently on the waiting list.
I think that is a positive move and has been welcomed by most
of the groups that work in this area.
1 August 2007 Back
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