Today, as I announce the model for the delivery of social security in Scotland and publish the evidence supporting the decision, we mark the next significant milestone in building Scotland’s new social security system.
I will outline the shape and approach of Scotland’s social security agency and touch on both the estimated number of people it will employ and the estimated costs involved in delivery. In the autumn, I will announce the location of the agency and the next steps for our assessment model for determining eligibility for benefits.
Following the decision last March to establish a new executive agency, we have undertaken a second-stage options appraisal to examine how the agency could deliver a rights-based social security service in a way that both aligns with our core principles of dignity, fairness and respect and achieves value for money. In doing so, we have again underlined our commitment to co-production and transparency by involving partners from the third sector, local government and academia and using the responses to the social security consultation to determine and assess the appraisal criteria. That was a formidable and detailed analytical task, which has led to a thorough and balanced options appraisal report, which itself demonstrates the integrity and robustness of the process and the evidence base from which we have worked.
Our preferred model for delivery has two key strands. Ten of the 11 devolved benefits will be delivered directly by the new social security agency through an efficient centralised function. However, our social security agency will also provide locally accessible face-to-face pre-claims advice and support, co-located—where possible—in places that people already visit. Discretionary housing payments and the Scottish welfare fund will continue to be delivered by local authorities.
The option that we have chosen will best deliver on our key objectives, which are: consistency of provision across Scotland; a person-centred, rights-based service; a strong, local, human face to improve accessibility and support; and a safe and secure transition for the 1.4 million people who rely on the service.
That local presence will be one of the key differences between our social security agency and the current United Kingdom system. Our approach will provide consistency of service across Scotland—irrespective of where an individual lives—and a more responsive service.
We welcome the 11 benefits being devolved, but too much remains reserved and will continue to be delivered in a UK system that has all the deficiencies and faults that are so eloquently detailed in responses to our consultation. We want to see all welfare being devolved, so the agency that we are creating will have built into it the ability to expand to accommodate new powers in the future.
Our next steps will be to decide on the agency’s central location. Again we will take a systematic, evidence-based approach, taking into account a variety of socioeconomic factors and using the same multicriteria framework that was used for the wider options appraisal. In identifying co-location opportunities for the local presence that is central to our model, we will begin discussions with local partners.
There is no doubt that the jobs created in the new agency will bring a major economic benefit to Scotland. We estimate that at least 1,500 people will work in Scotland’s social security agency when it is fully operational. With our provision of a local presence across Scotland, those jobs will not be confined to one central location.
As one would expect, we required the options appraisal to closely examine the estimated running costs of the new system. I am pleased to report that our chosen delivery model not only meets our principles, but represents the best value for money. Although the figures will be refined as we move forward, we estimate that when the agency is fully delivering all the benefits its annual running costs will be around £150 million.
Before I conclude, I will say a little about the assessment model that we will use for the disability and ill-health related benefits. In the past 11 months, I have learned a great deal about how the current UK system goes about assessments. Over and over again, I have heard the personal experiences of so very many people who have found assessment to be one of the most difficult, distressing and demeaning aspects of their whole experience.
I am in no doubt that the current UK assessment model must be substantially changed. I make clear that the approach that we will take will give due recognition to self-assessment and to clear, third-party, professionally founded supporting evidence. If relevant information is secured at the first decision point in the overwhelming majority of cases, we can speed up decisions, getting more right first time and reducing the demand for appeals, which currently place additional psychological and financial strain on individuals.
We will be guided by people’s personal experience through our experience panels, and by the expertise of our disability and carers benefits expert advisory group, which met for the first time last week.
We will also be guided by our principles. One of those principles is that profit should never be a motive or play any part in making decisions or assessing people’s health and eligibility. I have seen and heard enough evidence to know that the private sector should not be involved in assessments for Scotland’s benefits. I can confirm to the Parliament that in our assessment model there will be no contracting with the private sector.
I have begun to explore the potential to use the existing information and expertise of the health and social care sector. I want a genuine partnership to access only the already-known information that is relevant to social security decisions, with appropriate consents and robust safeguards. That will free up the time that health and other professionals currently spend dealing with the negative impact of the UK system on individuals, and enable our skilled and professional health and social care staff to focus on the role that they have trained to take on: caring for and supporting the health and social care of their patients and clients.
We need to get this absolutely right, so we will be working as a Scottish public sector with the professional interests of those in the health and social care sector, drawing on the views of our experience panels and asking the expert advisory group to map out clearly the application and assessment process, to enable us to gather evidence as early as possible and get our first and subsequent decisions right first time. I will return to the chamber in the autumn to provide members with an update and detail on our next steps.
Today’s announcement is not just the culmination of a major and robust options appraisal but the starting point for the design of more detailed operational arrangements—agency locations, staff numbers and service design. Next will be our forthcoming social security bill, which is on track for introduction in the Parliament by the summer, and a timescale for the first suite of benefits that we will deliver.
Our number 1 priority remains the safe and secure transition of 11 benefits for the 1.4 million people who rely on them. Our social security agency will deliver the benefits in an efficient and person-centred way that will be tailored to individual needs. It will provide major economic gain with a significant number of new jobs. It will demonstrate that social security is an on-going investment in the people of Scotland, and we will demonstrate that there is a better and fairer way of delivering social security to those who are entitled to and rely on that support.
This Government will build a social security system that will stand the test of time and the test of trust from the people of Scotland who rely on it. This is a challenging time—as Audit Scotland said, it is “an exceptionally complex task”—but it is also a golden opportunity, and I am determined that we will get it right.