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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 18 August 2025
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Displaying 1653 contributions

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Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 14 June 2023

Maggie Chapman

On your staffing mix, you have previously talked about the contractors that you use and the specialised work that they do, and your corporate plan includes a planned reduction in reliance on contractors. Will you provide us with an update on how that is going?

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 14 June 2023

Maggie Chapman

That makes sense. It is good news to hear that people who come in as contractors see Registers of Scotland as a good place to work and an attractive proposition, and want to jump on board.

We have previously discussed the fact that cost is one of the reasons given in the corporate plan for wanting to shift the balance away from the use of contractors. Are you still aiming to make cost savings?

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 14 June 2023

Maggie Chapman

I suppose that there is also a benefit for staff morale and the integrity of the staff team in having people who are there for the long term. How is morale, given the successes that you have had in dealing with the backlog and the increase of 7 per cent that you mentioned in relation to the land register?

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Consumer Scotland

Meeting date: 24 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

I could also add my pitch about tickets and the recall database that Gordon MacDonald mentioned. I have had an extraordinary number of pieces of casework about refunds of credit from energy companies, and it just seems incredibly difficult.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Consumer Scotland

Meeting date: 24 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

Thank you for raising the legal services issue, because that will increasingly become something that we need to consider. You talked about vulnerability by characteristic or circumstance. Often, there are intersecting or compounding factors involved. Douglas, you mentioned that different people will have different vulnerabilities depending on the market that you are looking at, hence the importance of the cross-market work that you do. How do you interpret potentially intersecting vulnerabilities? Does that lead to policy change, advice change or that kind of thing?

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Consumer Scotland

Meeting date: 24 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I want to explore the issue of vulnerable customers and consumers a bit further. Obviously, they are a statutory focus of your work, and you have clearly identified the issue as a cross-cutting theme. You have spoken a little about the challenges and issues. You said that you took a broad definition of a vulnerable consumer, and the definitions in the 2020 act refer to people who have

“fewer or less favourable options”

and are

“at ... greater risk of ... harm”.

How do you define vulnerability? How do you identify the vulnerable consumer?

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Consumer Scotland

Meeting date: 24 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

That is very helpful and interesting. Following the discussion that we had earlier, it is clear that there is a key role for collaboration and partnership working and the connection with the expert advisory group and drawing in lived experience from that. For example, would Advice Direct Scotland come to you and say that it is seeing an increasing number of calls, queries, complaints or questions on a specific issue? Would that allow you to track into either the expert advisory group with lived experience or your wider policy research?

Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee

Asylum Seekers in Scotland

Meeting date: 16 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

I have one final—

Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee

Asylum Seekers in Scotland

Meeting date: 16 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

Thank you. I will leave it there, convener.

Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee

Asylum Seekers in Scotland

Meeting date: 16 May 2023

Maggie Chapman

I will explore that a bit further. On the operation of the hotels, you talked about the need for culturally sensitive food and that kind of thing. What direct operational involvement do you have in the running and maintenance of the hotels once asylum seekers are accommodated there?