Chamber and committees

For the purposes of developing the Maternity and Early Years Allowance, Scottish Government officials have carried out an assessment of the cost of essential items for a new born child and shared these with stakeholders. We consider that these items could be bought with the £600 maternity payment that the Maternity and Early Years Allowance will make for first children. Officials have also sought opinions from users and potential users about their perception of the level of the current Sure Start Maternity Grant. Support with the overall or basic costs of having a child will continue to be met through a combination of benefits, many of which remain reserved and which make regular payments in addition to those planned by the Scottish Government on receipt of additional powers.

Our intention is to create a Maternity and Early Years Allowance. For those eligible, a maternity payment will be made for the first child of £600. Maternity payments for second and subsequent children will be £300. Payments of £250 will be introduced for all children when they start nursery and again when they start school.

The Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 contains a regulation making power to enable Scottish Ministers to introduce a licensing scheme for funeral directors. The introduction of such a scheme will be considered once inspectors of the funeral industry have been appointed under the Act and they have reviewed how the industry operates and made recommendations to Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Government is in the process of organising a national conference as part of the range of work currently being undertaken to address the issue of the costs of funerals including hosting round table discussions between Scottish Ministers and stakeholders and working with stakeholders to provide information to help people plan ahead for their own funeral.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-00236 on 14 June 2016. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Estimating the number of people who are eligible for the funeral payment is difficult because of the limited Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) data available and the unpredictable nature of life events.

Table 1 provides estimates of the number of possible Funeral Payment awards that would be made in 2016-17 to 2020-21.

Two sets of figures are provided. The first column estimates of the number of payments that would be made if current take-up levels were maintained.

The second column provides a very rough estimate of the number of payments that could be made if we managed to achieve maximum take up the funeral payment based on current eligibility criteria.

Table 1: Forecast number of funeral payment awards in Scotland, 2015-16 to 2020-21

Source: Scottish Government analysis based on Department for Work and Pensions figures

Table 2 shows the numbers of funeral payment applications and awards in Scotland in 2010-11 to 2014-15.

Source: UK Government parliamentary question 11102

Annual costs and the average award are available from DWP.

Note for table 2:

All figures are rounded to the nearest 100.

The applications figures are based on applications received by DWP, not applications processed. Some applications may have been withdrawn before a decision was made.

The award figures include awards made after review, reconsideration or appeal following an initial refusal.

These figures do not include cases which have been processed clerically and have not been entered on to the Social Fund computer system.

We want the powers to control the funeral payment as soon as practically possible, however timescales for delivering benefits in Scotland are yet to be formalised. There is much work to do to support our policy objectives on funeral poverty and the costs of a funeral and decisions about the detail of the replacement for the funeral payment can only be made in this wider context.

A stakeholder reference group has been set up to advise on work on funeral poverty and the development of the funeral payment. The funeral payment will form part of the wider consultation over the summer on devolved social security benefits, to gather views to inform decisions, including those around eligibility. We will also be taking forward the next steps in the delivery process, which will involve some of the financial, legal and practical considerations.

The responsibility of burial and cremation charges lies with local authorities. As part of wider work on funeral costs, we plan to bring together funeral directors, councils and interested groups to examine ways of reducing funeral costs and encouraging people to better plan for their funeral.