Chamber and committees

There are wider questions for us all about how, collectively, we continue, as we are obligated to do in the 2018 act—the Government takes this very seriously—to raise individuals’ and communities’ awareness of what benefits they are entitled to and to encourage people to apply. Social Security Scotland does that on a regular basis, especially towards particular milestones of applications opening or closing. You will have seen that in the activity that Social Security Scotland undertakes, and members play an important role in raising awareness of that.

We take the evaluation of our policies very seriously. In Social Security Scotland alone, we have invested £165,000 in policy evaluations, to date, and we are currently considering our future evaluation programme. We will provide updates on that shortly.

With regard to the on-going considerations around Scottish carers assistance, I have already specified that we are engaging with stakeholders on a detailed options analysis, and we will consult on proposals in the winter of 2021-22. That is forthcoming. Detailed analysis is also going on through our engagement with the carer benefits advisory group and other stakeholders and individuals. We are having the kind of wide engagement that you would expect us to have.

As members will know, the development of any of our new benefits involves significant engagement with the DWP on passporting and case transfer. In our consultation and in developing Scottish carers assistance, we will look at the changes that we can potentially make to eligibility in Scotland without affecting the passporting process and creating unintended consequences and losses for people.

We will endeavour to transfer cases from the DWP as quickly as possible, although members will be aware that Shirley-Anne Somerville updated Parliament in the spring on the wider issue, when she said that we were working towards 2025 with regard to case transfer. It is a very important process that needs to be safe and secure, and stakeholders understand that that is a priority for all of us to ensure that nobody falls through the gaps and people get their support.

From an information technology infrastructure and delivery perspective, we need to build capacity in Social Security Scotland, which turned three years old yesterday. It has developed at a remarkable pace and is delivering for and serving the people of Scotland well, but we need to continue to build that strength in the organisation. After all, it needs a very strong foundation if it is to deliver for decades to come.

We are moving forward at pace and are looking to make a meaningful difference with the delivery of Scottish carers assistance.

Mr Briggs raises some important points. Of course, the introduction of the young carer grant was an initiative that the Scottish Government has delivered. It represents a change, utilising the powers that we have.

You may or may not be aware of this, but just last week we received an interim evaluation of the young carer grant. We will consider that evaluation and the points made by Mr Briggs, and we will continue to consider—as we do on a regular basis with all that we deliver—how stakeholders and clients are responding to and receiving the benefits that we provide and whether improvements can and should be made. We will consider the evaluation and we will keep the committee updated as appropriate.

I will bring in Andrew Strong in a minute, but you will know that we worked closely and quickly with the DWP to put in place breaks-in-care easements for carers at the start of the pandemic and to extend them for as long as we and stakeholders felt they were needed.

Andrew, you have engaged significantly with carers organisations on those points, and I would be grateful if you could answer in more detail for Mr Briggs.

As always, it is about how we utilise Government mechanisms, the statutory services and interactions with voluntary organisations and representative groups to raise awareness in their networks proactively and within communal space and other means by which people interact or gather together, using proactive communications through social media and other mechanisms, and giving a strong emphasis to the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland using our channels and trying to get others to amplify through their networks to do all that we can to encourage benefit take-up in Scotland and ensure that people get what they are entitled to, because we want them to have that, and we want to support them.

We know from our experience with the best start foods payment that individuals like such payments to be made early in December, and part of the reason for the expedited timetable is to ensure that we can deliver that.

As you would expect, I listened attentively to the previous evidence. We were unable to make the payment in June because of the Parliament’s timetable in the run-up to the end of the parliamentary session and the fact that there was no capacity to consider primary legislation. However, as was pointed out in the previous evidence session, the timing of this payment—in December—will be very welcome to many, given the budget pressures that people face at that time.

With regard to future years, the allocation has been made in this year’s budget to make the payment proposed in the bill. There are questions with regard to what will happen in future years, which is why we are seeking to create this enabling power, and it will be a question for the budget process, which will begin shortly for the whole Parliament, whether resource will be set aside and applied next year. In the bill, we want to create the enabling power to facilitate that, should that be the Parliament’s decision.

Those are all incredibly important points. Although the interactions between carers allowance and universal credit continue to be a key consideration in developing Scottish carers assistance, there are no feasible delivery mechanisms in this primary legislation to address that. That is why we need to work collectively on the delivery of the new benefit of Scottish carers assistance and consider all those points around eligibility, which are extremely important.

I do not know whether the committee will touch on Scottish carers assistance later in today’s considerations; I can come back to some of those points in due course, if that is okay.

I am glad that Pam Duncan-Glancy asked that question, because it allows me to clarify that, when I talked earlier about 2025, I meant that that is when we aim to have completed case transfer. In the process of delivering Scottish carers assistance, we are looking into what eligibility changes we can make, and we are in discussions with the DWP and others on that. I talked earlier about the fact that we will be consulting this winter and we have engaged extensively with unpaid carers and organisations that represent them over the past five years to consider ways to improve social security support for unpaid carers.

Through that work we have developed a series of aims for Scottish carers assistance and a range of options for change; those include considerations around the earning threshold, removing the restrictions for those in full-time education and increasing the period of time for which payments can continue following the death of a cared-for person. Those are a number of points of consideration and those options are currently undergoing detailed objective evaluation to make sure that we take forward the right combination of changes at the right time and in the right way to ensure the best outcomes for carers.

The important point in Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question and my answer so far is the complex interactions between carer benefits and the reserved benefits system, which means that this bill is not the time to try to rush through changes to existing carer benefits. We need to do that through the development of Scottish carers assistance, because we need to make sure that there are no unforeseen consequences and that it can be delivered.

If Parliament passes the bill, we have the finance secured and the delivery mechanism through Social Security Scotland to get the money into people’s pockets in December, which is what we want to do. We need to collectively consider as a Parliament how we support carers more widely in the development of Scottish carers assistance.

I will conclude with some information that I hope will be helpful in answer to your question. At this stage, we continue to make good progress on the launch of Scottish carers assistance. We have finished pre-discovery work with the DWP and have made sure that we have a full understanding of current carers allowance processes. There is a question around processes and delivery and we need to make sure that agencies can successfully get resources to people in a practical way.

As I said, we are about to commence, in the next quarter, feasibility work on how we will deliver Scottish carers assistance. Our aim is to begin build for Scottish carers assistance in the new year, and we expect a minimum of 18 months of build. All that work needs to go in to ensure that the systems are effective and there is robust delivery. Given the complex interactions between carer benefits and the reserved benefits system, we need to be cognisant of that.

I hope that that reassures Pam Duncan-Glancy that work is being undertaken at pace and that we are looking to make a difference for unpaid carers in Scotland as quickly as we can.

Does Kate Thomson-McDermott want to come in with any further points on that, if I have not covered everything that should be said?

I noted with interest the differing opinions on the first panel on that issue. That is a point of consideration for our future benefit of Scottish carers assistance, but at the moment we need to stay focused on the window for the December payment and the fact that the carers allowance supplement is the only feasible mechanism that we have that does not risk the on-going delivery and consideration of the live benefits that we currently deliver and the roll-out of new benefits.

The issue that Evelyn Tweed raises is a point of consideration, but at the moment we are very focused on delivering the December payment.

Absolutely. We will consider it, and I look forward to doing so with the committee.