SCoSS Charter Sub-Committee Meeting
Date: 18 February 2025
Time: 10:00
Venue: Microsoft Teams
Minutes
Present—
- Dr Mark Simpson (Chair)
- Dr Marilyn Howard (Member)
- Ed Pybus (Member)
Apologies: None
In attendance (SCoSS Secretariat)—
- Andrew Strong, Head of Policy and Scrutiny
- Christopher Galloway, Analysis and Participation Support Officer
1. Welcome and declaration of interests
Marilyn Howard adopted the position of acting Chair for this meeting. She welcomed the attendees to the ninth meeting of the Charter Sub-Committee.
There were no apologies and no interests were declared.
2. Matters arising from previous meeting
Andrew provided an update on stakeholder feedback regarding the accessibility of the proposed document covers for the final report. This feedback will be incorporated into the final document.
He also confirmed that he will meet with Adam Bennett of the SCoSS Board to discuss the use of Plain English.
Action: Secretariat to incorporate stakeholder accessibility feedback into the next iteration of the final report.
Action: Andrew to meet with Adam to discuss a Plain English version of the final report.
Christopher shared an update on last week’s meeting with Social Security Scotland colleagues, where the team discussed whether additional questions should be sent to Social Security Scotland for clarification on client interaction processes. It was agreed that the Secretariat would follow up with Social Security Scotland colleagues to gather further information for inclusion in the final report.
Action: Secretariat to send additional questions to Social Security Scotland colleagues for clarification on client service processes.
3. Draft report on experiences of people with communication needs
Members and the Secretariat discussed further amendments to the latest draft of the final report, including terminology, language use, and overall structure.
It was agreed that the Secretariat would revise the report based on today’s discussion before presenting it at the February Board meeting.
Action: Secretariat to revise the report based on comments and suggestions before presenting it at the February Board meeting.
The Sub-Committee also agreed to consider holding a future meeting to reflect on the report drafting process, identify key learning points, and explore potential improvements for future research.
4. Any other business
It was agreed that the next meeting of the Sub-Committee meeting would take place on 3 March 2025 at 10:30am.
Meeting closed at 11:45
Date of next meeting: Monday 3rd March (10:30am – 12:00pm)