Date: 26 November 2025

Time: 13:30

Venue: Microsoft Teams

Present—

• Ed Pybus (Chair)
• Adam Bennett (Member)
• Dr Marilyn Howard (Member)
• Judith Paterson (Member)
• Dr Mark Simpson (Member)

Apologies: None

In attendance (SCoSS Secretariat)—

• Stephen Herbert, Secretary
• Andrew Strong, Head of Policy and Scrutiny
• Christopher Galloway, Analysis and Participation Support Officer
• Lisa Kinnear, Governance and Engagement Officer

The Chair welcomed the Commissioners to the meeting and no interests were declared.

The minutes of the October Board meeting were agreed.

The Board considered a draft response to the regulations and agreed to finalise a response via correspondence prior to the deadline for reporting of 5 December.

The Board considered the draft Care Leaver Payment (Scotland) Regulations 2026 on a page-by-page basis and agreed a final response.

Stephen Herbert provided the Board with an update on the financial position of the Commission in the current financial year where expenditure is forecast to be within budget. The Board also considered a budget forecast for 2026-27 and agreed a position with regard to the 2026-27 budget allocation.

Lisa Kinnear noted that the risk register was reviewed at the November Audit Sub-Committee at which the Sub-Committee agreed to recommend to the Board that a new risk be added to the risk register relating to the end of support from Programme Finance at the end of December 2025.  The Board considered, amended and agreed the risk register.  The Board also agreed that they were content with the current approach of managing risk.

Stephen Herbert spoke to this agenda item and noted that future governance arrangements were considered in detail at the Audit Sub-Committee meeting in November. The Board considered the Audit Sub-Committee’s recommendations for future governance arrangements and agreed—

• To replace the Audit Sub-Committee with a Governance Sub-Committee;
• That the current membership, including the Chair, of the Audit Sub-Committee will form the membership of the Governance Sub-Committee;
• That the membership of the Governance Sub-Committee should be reviewed annually;
• Terms of reference to govern the operation of the Sub-Committee and that the Standing Orders should be updated accordingly; and
• That these changes take immediate effect.

The Board noted that the Audit Sub-Committee had considered the approach to bringing external expertise into the work of the Commission at the November meeting. The members considered the recommendations of the Audit Sub-Committee and agreed that—

• An external expert panel be formed comprising of experts in the following areas 1) use of data in social security; 2) human rights; and 3) welfare rights;
• The role of the external panel is purely advisory and informal;
• That in the first instance that appointments to the expert panel will be made by the Board at a future Board meeting. The Board will review the process for future appointments to the panel;
• The Board agreed that members of the panel should be remunerated and will consider options for remunerating members of the panel at a future Board meeting; and
• That the external panel should be established for a pilot period of 2 years and be operational from June 2026.

The Board noted an update on the transition of the Commission’s website to Oracle Cloud.  The Board agreed that the website should not go ‘live’ on Oracle Cloud until ‘penetration testing’ of the website had been completed.  The Board agreed to keep progress on this issue under review.

The Chair provided the Board with an update on his forthcoming meetings which include attending a Carer’s Scotland 60^th anniversary reception at the Scottish Parliament, an Ethical Standards Commissioner led meeting on Public Appointments Strategy in Scotland and an EHRC training session with the Board.

Andrew Strong provided the Board with an update on the draft Two Child Limit Payment regulations.

Meeting closed at 16:49

Date of next Board meeting: Wednesday 17 December 2025