Chamber and committees

We had a good discussion on that issue during the debate last week, and Emma Roddick made some important points in her speech. We have a collective responsibility as a Parliament and, more widely, as a society to deal with that issue, which has been wrongly encouraged through some avenues, and through other avenues has been appeased. However, rather than looking back, let us look forward collectively at how we commit as a Parliament, as I urged in the debate last week, to reduce and in time remove any sense of stigma around claiming social security.

We have a social security system for a reason, which is to help and support people when we as a society agree that support should be there, and that takes a number of forms. I want to make that general, more conceptual point, because we have an important responsibility and opportunity in Scotland to change that stigma, but it will take time. The passing of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was part of that, but there is more work to do. It involves a change of social attitudes and a change of culture, and every politician can be a leader in that, as can others including the media.

There are obvious questions that we must consider as a Government. How do we proactively make those changes? We do that through our media output and our contributions in the chamber, and also through the general work of Social Security Scotland. We have worked hard to ensure that the process of applying for benefits is as accessible and supportive as possible, starting from the position that access to social security is a fundamental human right and is a shared, collective investment that we are making together as a society.

I take this opportunity to encourage people to take the time to check what they may be entitled to and to apply for the money that they are due. That is the fundamental message. We are doing what we can to encourage clients who have accessed a payment and who know someone else who may be eligible to pass the information on. If they have had a good experience, we encourage them and we are trying to support them to tell others about it, as that may make the difference, in that another person may apply, rather than not.

Parliamentary colleagues and others can share information on benefits, whether that involves putting up a poster in an office, encouraging local community centres or other entities to display information, or sharing posts on social media—as I know colleagues do regularly, which is extremely helpful. Kirsten Sweeney talked about the success of the Facebook initiatives that Social Security Scotland has undertaken and the wider social media work that it undertakes. We could all share that as widely as possible.

This is a collective responsibility. I appeal to everyone who comments on these issues—politicians, the media and other stakeholders and individuals—to speak positively about social security so that we can collectively move fully to a culture where stigma around claiming benefits is reduced and then eradicated as we create a society where we believe in people being able to access and get support when they need it. We must make that investment collectively with passion, positivity and commitment as a whole populace.

Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on our latest benefit take-up strategy, which was published and laid before Parliament on 21 October.

The new strategy builds on the 2019 strategy and sets out the Scottish Government’s approach to encouraging and supporting the take-up of Scottish benefits, as well as providing our best estimates of the take-up rates for the benefits that Social Security Scotland is delivering.

Publication of the strategy is a duty that is placed on the Scottish ministers by the 2018 act, but it is much more than that. Ensuring that all forms of assistance are available and accessible to those who need them and that everyone is able to take up their entitlements, regardless of personal circumstances, is a fundamental priority for the Scottish Government and something that we are very enthusiastic about.

Reserved benefits also play an important role in maximising people’s incomes in Scotland. It is disappointing that the Department for Work and Pensions still does not have any corresponding strategy for ensuring that those benefits are taken up. I genuinely hope that that changes.

A recognition that benefit take-up is part of a bigger picture is at the heart of the refreshed strategy. It is one pillar of a holistic Scottish Government approach to maximising incomes, which underpins commitments related to tackling poverty and recovering from the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The new strategy is built around five key principles that have been developed through extensive stakeholder engagement and experience panel research. In delivering the initiatives and interventions that are set out in the strategy, we will prioritise person-centred approaches; communicate and engage effectively; bring services to people; encourage cross-system collaboration; and continuously learn and improve. Each of those five principles, taken alone, is important, but bringing them together in the new strategy means that they will work in combination and yield far greater impact.

The benefit take-up strategy takes a whole-system approach and provides a framework within which we will continue to encourage and support people in Scotland to access the assistance that they are due.

I am happy to take any questions that the committee may have.

Apologies—I meant to touch on that as well. The work on the minimum income guarantee is being taken forward by the cabinet secretary, and it has a strong focus on income maximisation. The work on the formation of the group and its evaluation is at an early stage. I look forward to seeing its findings, which can help us with the benefit take-up strategy’s implementation and the evaluative process.

That gets to the overarching position of the strategy—how we promote the wider support that is available and encourage individuals to engage with it. That is one of the challenges that the Government faces. As we recover from the pandemic, the Government is strongly focused on how to provide that wraparound support. Social Security Scotland is an important part of that, and the benefit strategy that we are looking at today emphasises and considers ways that we can do that by encouraging the take-up of benefits, informing individuals about what is available and providing them with the support that they need to access that.

Marie McNair’s question is more widely applicable to service delivery in the round. I refer her to the Covid recovery strategy that was published a few weeks ago by the Deputy First Minister, which makes it clear that the Government’s focus is on taking a person-centred approach. People are at the heart of what we are doing collectively, in terms of public service provision. Social Security Scotland is a key part of that as one of a variety of public services that need to work together to support individuals.

That is a really important area, but it is also very challenging for all of us. Our policy evaluation programme will set out clients’ experiences of the factors that helped or hindered their applying for the benefit. That will provide important context for the situation in which the strategy operates: that feedback will be important. We will be looking for testimony that services were well advertised, that information was clearly accessible and that the application process was straightforward. To an extent, our policy evaluation programme will play a role in evaluating and monitoring in the way that Pam Duncan-Glancy rightly emphasises is important.

In addition, Social Security Scotland’s client insight programme will report on whether clients have been adequately supported by knowledgeable and understanding staff through the process of receiving a fair decision on their applications, so we will receive feedback on that. Of course, we report information annually in our charter measurement framework, which was published last week on 3 November. There are other processes and bits of work to make sure, rightly, that we monitor and evaluate—as much as we can—where we are as a service, what we have improved, what we need to improve further and how we make sure that we serve as effectively and informatively as possible those who access the service.

First, I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for all that she does to promote and emphasise the Scottish child payment in her own work, because that is an example of how members can help to raise awareness of the benefits that are available, by utilising their initiative and coverage and through their constituency work.

There are some initiatives around the Scottish child payment that I think you will be interested in. We have commissioned Ipsos MORI to conduct research that will inform an interim evaluation of the initial roll-out of Scottish child payment for zero to five-year-olds. As with evaluations of our other benefits, that will contribute to a wider report that will combine commissioned research with what we know from official statistics and population surveys. The evaluation is due for publication in the summer of 2022, so that work will help us in the areas that Pam Duncan-Glancy has rightly highlighted.

We also recently published our evaluation strategy for the devolution of disability benefits. It contains a range of thematic projects up until 2025, which are designed to assess the safe and secure transition of benefits from the DWP. That will help with regard to initial experiences of the application and decision-making approach, particularly around supporting information in the application process, and it will draw largely from our experience of the child disability payment. It is not related to the Scottish child payment, but it is a piece of research in the same thematic area that will help us to improve our insight and evidence.

The experience of families in applying for the child disability benefit and the impact that that has had on them and their wellbeing will be key aspects of that work. We will look at that following the full roll-out of the child disability payment later this month.

On the question about the uptake figure of 77 per cent for the Scottish child payment, it is important to recognise that, first of all, 108,000 children have benefited from the Scottish child payment, so it has been a success for a lot of people. On the estimated reduction of 3 percentage points or, rather, on the point about the figure of 77 per cent, it is important to point out that it is an initial estimate. We expect that to increase when the Scottish child payment reaches its steady state, which will occur when growth in the number of benefit recipients flattens and settles at its natural level. We are expecting the data to show an increase. Vana Anastasiadou might want to say something on the figure of 77 per cent.

I would be happy to come back to Mr Balfour on some of those points. As I said, there is engagement and continued correspondence with the sector on how we can work collectively to raise awareness of the benefit and make sure that those who are entitled and want to claim it do so. The general marketing and awareness campaigns that Social Security Scotland undertake promote the benefit as one of our 11 benefits, so wider work is taking place. I will follow up in due course on the more detailed questions that Mr Balfour asked if that is helpful.

That is one of the hardest questions for us, collectively, to answer. I have considered the matter in two capacities; I did so first when I was Minister for Europe, Migration and International Development, when I considered how we could raise awareness of the UK Government’s European Union settlement scheme among the hardest to reach, who might not necessarily access services in the normal manner.

Of course, there is the media work that Social Security Scotland does, which includes work with the mainstream media, such as newspapers and local radio, as well as work with social media, through all the different mechanisms that you would expect. Kirsten Sweeney will be able to say more about that.

The investment in the welfare advice and health partnerships is significant. The vast majority of people will access GP services and the national health service at some point. The provision of that service, whereby 150 surgeries are due to deliver welfare advice services in-house, is significant. We have provided new funding for that service, which is an important aspect of our outreach work.

Kirsten, would you like to say a bit more about Social Security Scotland’s activity in the mainstream media?

I was grateful to have a session with the committee a few weeks ago on the advocacy service. Since then, the procurement process has moved into the final stages and the service is in the process of being rolled out. At that meeting, I committed to speaking again to the committee about the advocacy service, because I was sure that it would be of interest. I am looking forward to meeting VoiceAbility, the organisation that we have contracted to deliver the service, later this month. Ruari Sutherland, who has led on engagement with VoiceAbility and the procurement process, might have something to add.

Thank you for highlighting that example; indeed, such examples exist right across the country. I have already spoken about my anecdotal experience as a constituency MSP and as a minister engaging with stakeholder and individual claimants, and I think that those kinds of life events—a family registering a birth, as you have alluded to, or an individual starting nursery or school—provide really important opportunities for signposting. The approach is particularly relevant in promoting our five family benefits, which are very important.

In its corporate plan, Social Security Scotland commits to providing a joined-up service to clients, which means providing them with the best possible advice and referring them to organisations that can give any further help that might be needed. That is the overarching position of Social Security Scotland’s operation, and it is working closely with partners to support the development of referral pathways of the kind that Marie McNair has brought to light in the example that she referred to and to ensure that clients who need broader support can connect with an organisation that can provide it.

This is a complex area of work. How do we ensure that referral happens at those signposting events, that engagement is happening and that information is available? We are certainly starting from a strong position, particularly with regard to the five family benefits.