Chamber and committees

Winter Benefits

Letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government of 1 July 2021

Neil Gray MSP
Convener
Social Security Committee
The Scottish Parliament
EDINBURGH
EH99 1SP

[email protected]

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01 July 2021

Congratulations on your appointment as Committee Convener. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead as we continue to deliver on the devolution of social security benefits, including our manifesto commitments.

We have already successfully launched 10 benefits since Social Security Scotland was established, including earlier this year our ‘game changing’ Scottish Child Payment to tackle child poverty. We will shortly be inviting applications in three local authority areas for our new Child Disability Payment, the first step in the roll out of new disability benefits over the course of the next year, culminating with the launch of Adult Disability Payment next year. These benefits, together with the planned delivery of Scottish Child Payments to 6-16 year olds, subject to receiving DWP data, represent very significant delivery milestones which will make real differences to the lives of the people of Scotland.

As you know it was necessary to temporarily suspend work on the delivery of the remaining devolved benefits programme as result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This approach was agreed between the Scottish and UK Governments. My predecessor, Shirley-Anne Somerville, regularly updated Parliament about plans for the delivery of the social security programme, most recently on 17 November 2020, and of course I will continue to do so as decisions are taken.

Over the course of the pandemic a decision was taken by DWP which mean they are no longer in a position to support the process of ‘household matching’ of data on reserved benefits via the Seasonal Payments System when the winter benefits are devolved. Whilst I fully recognise DWP will not have taken that decision lightly, this process is a significant feature of how these benefits need to be administered when we assume responsibility and require us to build a new system here in Scotland. This was not something we had previously planned for. I am taking this into account in agreeing the timetable for the remaining devolved benefits beyond Child Disability Payment and Adult Disability Payment.

I have today written to the Secretary of State to formally request an extension of the operation of the Social Fund in Scotland. That Fund, which provides DWP with the powers to deliver winter benefits in Scotland, currently expires in Scotland in March 2022. In that letter I have sought the agreement to an extension of up to 2 years by which time we will have put in place the arrangements required to deliver our replacement benefits. While our aim remains to deliver the benefits as soon as feasibly possible and I remain confident in our ability to do so, it would seem prudent to give ourselves the contingency of taking legal provision to keep the fund open to Scottish residents, as the development work proceeds.

My officials have worked with their DWP counterparts to explore whether there are any other possible options which could avoid the need to agree an extension of the operation the Social Fund. Officials have concluded that this is the only option which could feasibly be taken forward without substantial risk of incorrect payments being made or of disruption to our devolution programme, either of which would be considered unacceptable.

I will be happy to discuss this and other matters with the committee in the future, and look forward to working closely with you and your members as we take forward the next phase of this important work.

Shona Robison