Official Report 659KB pdf
Care Leaver Payment (Scotland) Regulations 2026 [Draft]
Good morning and welcome to the sixth meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee in 2026. We have received apologies from Willie Rennie.
The first item on our agenda is consideration of subordinate legislation that is subject to the affirmative procedure. The committee will take evidence from the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise and her officials on the draft Care Leaver Payment (Scotland) Regulations 2026. The minister will then move the motion to approve the instrument.
I welcome Natalie Don-Innes, the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise; Gavin Henderson, deputy director for keeping the Promise; Aisha Pereyra, team leader for the care leaver payment; and Susan Bonellie, a lawyer from the Scottish Government legal directorate.
I invite Ms Don-Innes to speak to the draft instrument.
I thank the committee for inviting me to give evidence on the draft Care Leaver Payment (Scotland) Regulations 2026 and welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in its consideration of the regulations.
The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to keeping the Promise to all our children and young people and to making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. That commitment resonates strongly with me personally and I remain dedicated to ensuring that that commitment extends to all children and young people with care experience as they transition from care and move on into adulthood and independent living.
Moving into adulthood is extremely challenging for any young person of any age, but the challenges can be exacerbated when there are limited support networks in place. Many young people who move on from care do not have the same informal support networks that other young people have during the transition points in their lives. Financial stress and strain for young people moving on from care can quickly escalate to create a multitude of challenges and can lead to financial hardship. Our intention with the care leaver payment scheme is to provide additional financial support for young people who are moving on from care and into adulthood in order to help reduce some of the challenges faced during that transition.
The regulations will allow local authorities to make a one-off £2,000 payment to care leavers at the point when they leave care or continuing care. The payment will be made by the local authority that last looked after the young person and the regulations allow the young person autonomy over how they wish to spend or save the payment.
I have listened to the voices of care-experienced young people and understand how important it is for their experiences to be reflected in policy design. I want to get the new payment right and to ensure that its structures are based on solid evidence and real-time feedback from the care community and workforce. My officials have consulted extensively on the design and development of the care leaver payment and have co-designed it with people who have experience of care and those who provide support to care leavers in order to ensure that the voices of lived experience and of those with professional expertise have been incorporated into the design of the payment.
A full public consultation, a series of safeguarding workshops with practitioners and our targeted engagement with care-experienced young people have all contributed to the development of the payment to best meet the needs of our young people as they move on from care. Stakeholders have welcomed the new payment as providing an additional opportunity to reduce the vulnerability and financial barriers that young people face when moving on from care.
The Scottish Commission on Social Security has scrutinised the draft regulations and produced a report. I thank the commission for that thorough consideration and welcome the first observation within the report, which is that the new payment is a welcome addition to the existing support available to young people who are leaving care and is another step the Scottish Government has taken towards keeping the Promise. The Scottish Government’s response to the commission’s report was laid alongside the draft instrument.
I welcome the committee’s questions on the draft regulations and would be happy to provide any further information.
Minister, you mentioned the public consultation. That closed in January 2024. Why has it taken two years since then to bring the instrument forward?
I will bring in my official, Aisha Pereyra, to say more in a moment, but a number of things had to be considered following the consultation, including the delivery vehicle and the safeguarding of children. We had to deal with a number of matters to really ensure that we got the payment right, based on what we heard during the consultation and on our engagement. Aisha may be able to say more about the full timeline.
Before we come to your official, were those issues things that ministers and officials had anticipated? When you were carrying out your consultation, which went on until 26 January 2024—which is almost two years ago—did you think that there would be a two-year break? Did you anticipate that, or did unexpected issues that were raised during the consultation lead to the payment sitting in abeyance for a couple of years?
I will have to ask my officials to clarify that.
We had to create an enabling power in primary legislation for the payment, and the enabling power in the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025 did not commence until 10 May 2025. That work was going on concurrently with our consultation procedure.
After the consultation, which had a very good response rate—there were more than 70 responses—we held in-person engagement sessions with 62 practitioners and young people. We thought that, in addition to that, it would make sense to hold safeguarding workshops, given that we will be giving a payment to young people. We held three safeguarding workshops with practitioners and people who support care-experienced young people. Following those workshops, we also engaged with more than 35 young people.
Each of those processes took time, but, primarily, we had to wait for our enabling power to go live on 10 May 2025.
But we are now in February 2026. I am just curious as to why the process seems to have been quite elongated.
My other concern relates to the consultation. You said that you had a good response to the consultation, with more than 70 people responding, so have they been waiting for a couple of years wondering what will happen next? What updates have they been receiving? I assume that you would expect something to happen fairly quickly after holding a consultation. Minister, do you accept that more than two years from the consultation closing to the regulations coming to the Parliament is quite a long time?
I accept that that is a lengthy period, but the committee has been given an answer on the legalities relating to the timescale. My focus was on getting the payment right for young people. Given that we are giving £2,000 to help young people to transition out of care, safeguards are needed to ensure that the child is effectively supported with the payment. My main priority was getting things right for young people.
In addition to the timings that we have already provided, as I said, the Scottish Commission on Social Security scrutinised the regulations. That took three months, so that added to the timescale, too.
A number of things added to the timescale, but I appreciate that, as the convener pointed out, there has been quite a lengthy period since the consultation.
Are you aware of young people having missed out on the payment as a result of the lengthy period between the consultation and the regulations being introduced?
There was no guarantee that the young people who engaged in the consultation would get the care leaver payment. No specific timescale was set for the payment being introduced. Obviously, there will be children who have not had the payment since the consultation, but lots of care-experienced young people prior to the consultation did not receive the payment.
The payment is a key aspect of delivering the Promise. I appreciate that we have had to wait until 2026 for the regulations, but I highlight that the introduction of the payment is an extremely positive move that will support young people when they leave care.
What was the issue in May?
The enabling power commenced in May 2025.
Could the regulations have been introduced in May or June before last year’s summer recess? What is the reason for the delay until February 2026?
I am not able to clarify the point about the parliamentary timescale, so I will need to ask my officials.
As I said, the enabling power commenced in May 2025. Once we knew that we had that power and the bill became an act, we continued at pace with the draft regulations, which, as the minister said, went through a three-month scrutiny process with SCOSS.
Earlier, you said that the work was running concurrently.
Yes. We were, of course, thinking about the draft regulations at the same time as we were going through the consultation process and holding the safeguarding workshops. The safeguarding workshops not only fed into the creation of the national practitioner guidance, which will sit alongside the regulations, but informed our thinking about having, for example, instalments in the regulations. Young people specifically said that receiving the payment in instalments would help them, and practitioners at the safeguarding workshops agreed with that. That work fed into our thinking on the draft regulations, because we wanted the regulations to be as thorough as they could be.
Were those workshops held before or after the enabling power was granted to the Government in May?
Sorry—I do not have my calendar with me.
The workshops were held after the consultation; they were running concurrently—[Interruption.]—Yes. We ran workshops prior to the commencement of the power and maybe also once we had the commencement. They fed into the draft regulations. Once we had had the final safeguarding workshop and we were content with our draft regulations, we started the SCOSS process.
It sounds like there was an opportunity from when the Government had the enabling powers. Most of the workshops and consultations had taken place. We still have a gap from May 2025 to February 2026, before the draft regulations were brought before the committee. Am I right in understanding, minister, that you are saying that that was because of pressure with parliamentary time? Was that the biggest issue?
I could not say that for certain, although I believe that that was an aspect—as well as the further work that had to take place in preparation for bringing the draft regulations to the committee.
Perhaps you could write to us on that, if you want to.
I would be happy to do that, to clarify the point about the time between May 2025 and bringing the regulations to the committee today.
There are no further questions. Is there anything more that you wish to say in response to the questions that have been asked, minister?
I have nothing further to add.
I invite the minister to move motion S6M-20537 in her name.
Motion moved,
That the Education, Children and Young People Committee recommends that the Care Leaver Payment (Scotland) Regulations 2026 [draft] be approved.—[Natalie Don-Innes]
Motion agreed to.
The committee has agreed to the draft regulations, on which it must now produce a report. Is the committee content to delegate responsibility to me, as convener, to agree the report on behalf of the committee?
Members indicated agreement.
Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (Modification) Regulations 2026 (SSI 2026/19)
The next item on our agenda is consideration of two items of subordinate legislation under the negative procedure.
Members have no comments on the regulations. Do members agree that they do not wish to make any recommendations to the Parliament on the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Rules of Procedure in Children’s Hearings) Amendment Rules 2026 (SSI 2026/30)
Members have no comments on the rules. Do members agree that they do not wish to make any recommendations to the Parliament on the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a change in the minister’s supporting officials.
09:12
Meeting suspended.
09:14
On resuming—
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