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No formal dates for any discussions to begin and conclude have been agreed with IBM.

In order to extend the contract, the Scottish Government would need to give IBM at least one month’s notice prior to the initial end date. Any discussions would need to take place in sufficient time to support this deadline.

The review of the social security finance functions is part of our ongoing business and continuous improvement approach. The review is being carried out by a Scottish Government official and no additional costs have been incurred.

As employment law is currently reserved, the Scottish Government cannot oblige employers in the third and private sector to report their disability pay gaps. However, the Scottish Government is committed to working with stakeholders to deliver improvements in equality. In December last year, we published ‘A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan’ , which, among other things, sets out our ambition to work with employers to support them in recruiting and retaining disabled people. The plan was developed in close collaboration with disabled people’s organisations, and the third sector.

The plan also commits the Scottish Government to showing leadership in this issue, that is why this year we will publish a Recruitment and Retention plan, setting out the actions we will take as an employer to support disabled people in the workplace. Upon publication, we will share learning from this experience to encourage other organisations to follow our example.

The Scottish Government measures the disability pay gap of its own workforce and that of the agencies for which it holds relevant information, by analysing payroll data. Analysis of the disability pay gap is dependent on the voluntary declaration of disability, or non-disability by employees. Employees that do check ‘Prefer not to say’ are excluded from the pay gap calculation, as are those who have not made any declaration.

The Scottish Government does not directly measure the disability pay gap of the third and private sector. However, we can estimate the median disability pay gap using Annual Population Survey data. The disability pay gap represents the difference between disabled and non-disabled full-time hourly earnings, expressed as a percentage of non-disabled full-time hourly earnings.

Table 1 shows the mean and median disability pay gap for a) Scottish Government core and b) the agencies for which it holds pay data. Data for the Scottish Housing Regulator, the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) and Revenue Scotland has been withheld, due to the small number of staff within these organisations that have self-declared a disability, and the challenges that this would represent in preserving anonymity for those who have self-declared a disability.

For the purposes of this table, pay includes both salary and on-going allowances such as pay supplements, but does not include overtime. Part-time staff are reckoned at their full-time equivalent salary.

Table 1

Scottish Government staffing hours on reviews are not tracked and are part of the overall programme effort. The financial resources committed to the review of the Social Security programme planning and governance is circa £120,000 (excluding VAT).

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-23453 on 5 June 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

A review of the Social Security Programme governance arrangements began on 28 January 2019, and is expected to conclude this summer. It forms part of ongoing Programme continuous improvement activities.

An update to the Social Security Programme business case was commissioned on 28 March 2019 and began on 24 April 2019. In line with good business practice, developing and updating the programme will be a continuous process throughout the lifecycle of the Programme.

Scottish Government staffing hours on reviews are not tracked and are part of the overall programme effort. The financial resources committed to the review of the Social Security programme planning and governance is circa £120,000 (excluding VAT).