Social Justice and Social Security Committee
The extra costs of living with a disability
Background
The Social Justice and Social Security Committee has responsibility for scrutinising disability benefits.
The Committee believed that people with a disability face extra living costs, compared to people who don't have a disability. However, definitive data was not available. To inform its scrutiny, the Committee commissioned research to find out what costs disabled people face in Scotland.
In March 2023, the Committee chose to have a piece of research undertaken jointly by the University of Strathclyde and the Poverty Alliance.
To prepare their findings, the researchers analysed publicly available data. They also worked with six disabled people living in Scotland to hear:
- what extra costs they are facing in their daily life
- what their experience of accessing support has been like
The researchers reported their findings to the Committee in March 2024.
Additional costs of disability in Scotland (320KB, pdf) posted 25 March 2024