Jim Elder-Woodward
Andy Higgins
Chloe McKee
Gordon Mckee
Nic Reid (left meeting at 11:04am)
Christine Mercer
In Attendance
Julia Smith
ILF Scotland Staff
Peter Scott
Lee House
Linda Scott
Paul Hayllor (joined at 10.54am, left at 11.22am)
Robert White (joined at 11.15am, left at 11.48am)
Emma O’Neill
Joan Turner
For example it could support people’s wellbeing, or help to reduce inequality.
Wellbeing means feeling comfortable, healthy and happy
Jim Elder-Woodward welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Everyone agreed to Lee recording the meeting.
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.
Lee will give them to the communications team so they can put them on the website.
2. Linda and Harvey will draft a proposal for the joint stakeholder event for Jim to see.
A draft proposal has been sent.
There were no new things we needed to talk about.
Artificial intelligence, or AI uses computers and machines to copy how the human mind solves problems and makes decisions.
Hacking means someone has broken into a computer system and can see your information.
Linda told the group that there has been hacking of people’s calendars.
The hacker can get into meetings and record what is being discussed.
The group agreed to turn the option back on for the waiting room to support the security of our stakeholder meeting.
Peter told the group that the new First Minister, Humza Yousaf, and the Cabinet Secretary, Michael Matheson are supportive of ILF Scotland and the re-opening of the fund.
Nic suggested that we let the Scottish Government know how many positives that the re-opening of the fund would have.
Re-opening the fund will have a positive affect on the economy.
Our economy is how the country produces and uses goods, services and money.
Linda said that ILF Scotland senior staff met with the Scottish Government Sponsor Team 2 weeks ago.
They talked about organising an evaluation on the Social Return on Investment in Scotland which could:
An evaluation checks if something is working well.
We hope to show the information from the evaluation at the joint event in September or October.
The Group agreed that ILF Scotland should chose an organisation to do the evaluation and the Group would sponsor it.
Linda will:
Emma told the group how this work was managed in Northern Ireland.
She was involved in the evaluation part of the exercise.
She will be involved in the planning but not the delivery of this exercise in Scotland.
Peter said that the Scottish Government is developing a new Disability Equality Strategy to replace the Disability Action Plan.
The Scottish Government has set up a group to develop the strategy and hope it will be finished in 2023.
The group is working on a list of the most important work to be done on the cost of living crisis and the impact of this on disabled people.
The cost of living crisis means the cost of everyday things we need like food, clothes and heating going up a lot.
Linda and Peter said the proposal has been sent to the Scottish Government and we are waiting for an answer.
The event will be in September or October in Edinburgh.
Linda had a planning meeting with people from:
She has sent a note of this meeting to the group.
Please give Linda your ideas and tell her what you think.
She will organise another meeting when the Scottish Government have agreed the event can happen.
Paul gave a presentation about the ILF Scotland Strategy 2023 to 2025.
He would like feedback from the group after the document is sent to them as a Word document.
Group members are asked to decide if there is any other work ILF Scotland should do as they work on their outcomes – what they want to happen.
Robert White told the group:
ILF Scotland will work with local councils and the Scottish Government to find ways round this for each person.
Linda spoke about the review of the Suspensions Policy so ILF awards can be suspended, not stopped, when recipients spend a long time in hospital or residential care.
She will send the draft revised policy to Group members for feedback.
This means for example, saying ‘disabled people’ instead of ‘people with disabilities’.
We will talk about this at the next meeting.
Linda said that ILF Scotland has increased PA hourly rates from £10.50 to £10.90 from 1 April 2023.
There is no automatic increase to the rates charged by Social Care Providers.
The Group talked about providers who increase PA hourly rates halfway through the year and then send recipients backdated bills.
Linda and Peter have written to providers to make it clear they should tell award managers about increase before bills are sent out.
Award managers should then tell ILF Scotland who can backdate bills for 4 weeks.
Senior staff have spoken to providers and met with payroll and financial management providers.
It has got better but there are still some problems.
Linda and Peter will talk more about this.
The training and registration of PAs is being developed.
There will be no rules for the terms and conditions of PA employment.
Linda said Policy 38 has been changed so we can restart awards if a recipient comes back into the community from hospital or residential care.
ILF Scotland will make a draft policy about changing Policy 20 Payments to increase the maximum sums:
Linda will send the draft policy to Group members.
Social work staff have said they cannot manage recipient awards and will look at individual cases with our assessors.
Linda and ILF Scotland senior staff will review Policy 26 - Managing an ILF Scotland Award and send any changes to the group.
We talked about this in Agenda point 4.
Linda said that ILF Scotland staff had made good progress on the actions to achieve the Charter Statements and she:
It is likely that Emma, Nic and Catherine Symington, Assessor, will be at the meeting along with other interested members of the Advisory Group.
There was nothing else we needed to talk about.
Lee will send out a Doodle Poll.
Copyright images © Photosymbols. Prepared by Disability Equality Scotland
