Chamber and committees

As I stated in Parliament on 27 April, I have made a clear commitment that profit making companies will not be involved in delivering assessments for disability benefits once devolved to Scotland.

The Social Security Bill will be introduced to Parliament before summer recess for appropriate scrutiny and will enable us to deliver a new Scottish social security which has fairness, dignity and respect at its heart.

Discussions between the Scottish Government and Department for Work and Pensions are on-going.

Recent discussions about using powers devolved under the Scotland Act to vary elements within reserved benefits have focused on Scottish Government flexibilities through Universal Credit and the Benefit Cap and implementation of the UK Government’s policy to end automatic entitlement to Housing Benefit for 18-21 year olds.

Despite several attempts we have not been able to secure agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on a means of reversing the UK Government’s policy through the Universal Credit system. DWP Ministers proved unwilling to offer any compromise to respect the differing positions of our two Governments. As such we were forced to make arrangements to mitigate the policy through existing schemes. This is now being delivered at pace but necessarily requires some time to develop a robust and effective means of delivery.

Universal Credit takes at least 6 weeks to process, so those making a new claim in April would not usually expect payments for housing costs to be made until mid-May.

The Scottish Government is now working with COSLA and local authorities to put in place mitigation through the Scottish Welfare Fund within that timescale.

We continue to make the case for a long term, person centred solution.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to create a disability poverty target.

We are committed to tackling the intergenerational cycle of poverty and as such introduced the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill to Parliament on 9 February 2017, signalling our clear commitment to reducing poverty in Scotland. The Bill will establish Scotland as the only part of the UK with stretching, income-based targets on child poverty. We would expect that disabled children will benefit from the targets being met.

Last year we published both the Fairer Scotland Action Plan and A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People, both of which contain actions to help improve the lives of disabled people; we will publish our first annual report on progress from the Fairer Scotland Action Plan in October.

The £80 million figure at Exhibit 2 of Audit Scotland’s report 'Managing New Financial Powers: An Update' utilised the published Draft Budget 2017-18 as the source. The Draft Budget 2017-18 was published by the Scottish Government on Thursday 15 December 2016. The Draft Budget 2017-18 included £80 million within the Finance and Constitution portfolio for Scotland Act 2016 non-tax Implementation, it is the Communities, Social Security and Equalities portfolio that will be a major draw on that budget.

A substantive answer to S5W-07360 was provided on 8 March 2017

The relative poverty threshold after housing costs (AHC) in 2014-15 was £243 per week and the absolute poverty threshold AHC was £237 per week.

The median (middle) equivalised income AHC of households in relative poverty in Scotland in 2014-15 was estimated to be £172 per week. This household would require around an additional £70 per week of equivalised income to reach the relative poverty threshold.

The median equivalised income AHC of households in absolute poverty in Scotland in 2014-15 was £168 per week and so this household would require around an additional £65 per week to reach the absolute poverty threshold.

Half of households in poverty would require more than this and half would require less.

These are equivalised amounts and so relate to the additional income required by a 2 adult household. In order to allow comparison of incomes between households of different sizes and compositions, and to allow us to compare incomes of all households to a single poverty threshold, incomes are adjusted to make them equivalent to the income of a 2 adult household. However to understand the actual amount of additional money a given household would require it is better to look at unequivalised income.

The following table, table 1, shows the unequivalised figures for different household types. The table also shows the amount required by the middle income household in decile 1 and in decile 2. Not all households in decile 2 are in poverty and none of the households in deciles 3 to 10 are in poverty. Again different households in deciles 1 and 2 would require different amounts of additional income to reach the poverty thresholds.

Table 1: Estimated additional income required by households in poverty to reach relative and absolute poverty thresholds, 2014-15

Figures rounded to nearest £5

Source: Households Below Average Income, DWP

New poverty figures for 2015-16 were published in March. The relative poverty threshold AHC in 2015-16 was £248 per week while the absolute poverty threshold remained at £237 per week. Table 2 shows the same figures as in table 1 but based on 2015-16 data.

Table 2: Estimated additional income required by households in poverty to reach relative and absolute poverty thresholds, 2015-16

Figures rounded to nearest £5

Source: Households Below Average Income, DWP

The estimated additional income required varies from year to year, due in part to changes in households' circumstances and in part to the variation in the data which comes from a sample survey and so is subject to a degree of error.

We do not plan to publish these figures which are complex and difficult to interpret. A variety of other statistics on poverty in Scotland are published on the Scottish Government website.

As outlined in the response dated 1 February 2017 from the Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, there is a commitment by DWP to incorporate flexibilities in the future contract for PIP so that the Scottish Government will be able to make decisions on it in due course.

As part of this commitment, discussions between officials for DWP and the Scottish Government are on-going and therefore further correspondence at Ministerial level is not required at this time. I will however ensure that the Committee is kept up to date as contractual matters progress.

The intention of the first phase of the benefits uptake campaign was to encourage people to check their eligibility for benefits entitlements with Citizens Advice Scotland.

Given the different nature of the benefits that individuals were seeking support on it is not possible to provide a total financial gain breakdown.

Early analysis indicates that there was a significant increase in people contacting bureaus during the campaign. Benefits as a proportion of all Scottish Citizens Advice bureaux business increased by 2.9% with views of website benefit pages showing a 378% increase on the previous week.

Initial feedback from Citizen Advice Scotland (CAS) reports that there was a total of 185 calls to the helpline recorded during 6-10 March. Overall CAS advised there were 427 calls reflecting the number of enquiries made in the following week 13-17 March.

The campaign encouraged participants to access the dedicated webpages provided by CAS. They have advised that there were 4,070 views of benefits page, representing a 378% increase on previous week. Their analysis also shows that there were 2,714 unique visitors to the webpages, a 375% increase on the previous week.