Chamber and committees

We had a good discussion on that issue during the debate last week, and Emma Roddick made some important points in her speech. We have a collective responsibility as a Parliament and, more widely, as a society to deal with that issue, which has been wrongly encouraged through some avenues, and through other avenues has been appeased. However, rather than looking back, let us look forward collectively at how we commit as a Parliament, as I urged in the debate last week, to reduce and in time remove any sense of stigma around claiming social security.

We have a social security system for a reason, which is to help and support people when we as a society agree that support should be there, and that takes a number of forms. I want to make that general, more conceptual point, because we have an important responsibility and opportunity in Scotland to change that stigma, but it will take time. The passing of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was part of that, but there is more work to do. It involves a change of social attitudes and a change of culture, and every politician can be a leader in that, as can others including the media.

There are obvious questions that we must consider as a Government. How do we proactively make those changes? We do that through our media output and our contributions in the chamber, and also through the general work of Social Security Scotland. We have worked hard to ensure that the process of applying for benefits is as accessible and supportive as possible, starting from the position that access to social security is a fundamental human right and is a shared, collective investment that we are making together as a society.

I take this opportunity to encourage people to take the time to check what they may be entitled to and to apply for the money that they are due. That is the fundamental message. We are doing what we can to encourage clients who have accessed a payment and who know someone else who may be eligible to pass the information on. If they have had a good experience, we encourage them and we are trying to support them to tell others about it, as that may make the difference, in that another person may apply, rather than not.

Parliamentary colleagues and others can share information on benefits, whether that involves putting up a poster in an office, encouraging local community centres or other entities to display information, or sharing posts on social media—as I know colleagues do regularly, which is extremely helpful. Kirsten Sweeney talked about the success of the Facebook initiatives that Social Security Scotland has undertaken and the wider social media work that it undertakes. We could all share that as widely as possible.

This is a collective responsibility. I appeal to everyone who comments on these issues—politicians, the media and other stakeholders and individuals—to speak positively about social security so that we can collectively move fully to a culture where stigma around claiming benefits is reduced and then eradicated as we create a society where we believe in people being able to access and get support when they need it. We must make that investment collectively with passion, positivity and commitment as a whole populace.

Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on our latest benefit take-up strategy, which was published and laid before Parliament on 21 October.

The new strategy builds on the 2019 strategy and sets out the Scottish Government’s approach to encouraging and supporting the take-up of Scottish benefits, as well as providing our best estimates of the take-up rates for the benefits that Social Security Scotland is delivering.

Publication of the strategy is a duty that is placed on the Scottish ministers by the 2018 act, but it is much more than that. Ensuring that all forms of assistance are available and accessible to those who need them and that everyone is able to take up their entitlements, regardless of personal circumstances, is a fundamental priority for the Scottish Government and something that we are very enthusiastic about.

Reserved benefits also play an important role in maximising people’s incomes in Scotland. It is disappointing that the Department for Work and Pensions still does not have any corresponding strategy for ensuring that those benefits are taken up. I genuinely hope that that changes.

A recognition that benefit take-up is part of a bigger picture is at the heart of the refreshed strategy. It is one pillar of a holistic Scottish Government approach to maximising incomes, which underpins commitments related to tackling poverty and recovering from the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The new strategy is built around five key principles that have been developed through extensive stakeholder engagement and experience panel research. In delivering the initiatives and interventions that are set out in the strategy, we will prioritise person-centred approaches; communicate and engage effectively; bring services to people; encourage cross-system collaboration; and continuously learn and improve. Each of those five principles, taken alone, is important, but bringing them together in the new strategy means that they will work in combination and yield far greater impact.

The benefit take-up strategy takes a whole-system approach and provides a framework within which we will continue to encourage and support people in Scotland to access the assistance that they are due.

I am happy to take any questions that the committee may have.

I thank Mr Choudhury for that question. However, that is not an area of responsibility for me, as social security minister; it is a question for the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport. Perhaps the convener and committee could note that and engage with the minister. I think that that would be more appropriate; I would not want to answer on behalf of another minister.

On the point about an individual having only one interaction with a service, with a proactive process, either digitally or otherwise, that then enables them to engage with other support, that already happens to a large extent, but there is improvement to be undertaken. I am talking about the public service as a whole, where refinement and efficacy could be improved to a greater extent. The Government as a whole is focused on that question and I am sure that we will come back to it collectively, as a Parliament, in the period ahead. Again, the Covid recovery strategy touches on some of those issues.

Another way of thinking about it is that there should be no wrong door—that is a phrase that I have used previously. If somebody goes to a GP practice and asks about social security, they should be able to get some assistance. That is exactly why we are providing 150 advisers in GP practices: to build on that concept and capacity. It is about not only co-ordination between public services, but the development of our digital capacity in the public sector; those two things are interrelated.

How do we ensure that referrals are made with proper and appropriate consideration of data protection and all the other aspects that services rightly have to consider? How do we put in place the infrastructure as well as the co-ordination to provide people with the greatest level of support that is available to them, so that they do not have to go to different places, either physically, digitally or otherwise?

We are starting from a good position on that, but there is more work to do across Government and local government, and with stakeholders. That is a really important thematic area of attention in the period ahead, as we recover from the pandemic.

You asked about the situation with monitoring. I refer to my earlier comments, in which I touched on the most important themes. We will continue to engage through the stakeholder take-up reference group and other entities that are already in place to make sure that we are monitoring progress as much as we can, within the data constraints that we touched on earlier. Does that answer your point?

Thanks, Ruari. It is helpful that you have set out the engagement with stakeholders, which is extremely important.

Before I bring in Vana Anastasiadou, I add that our strategy report discussed the limitations that are associated with estimating eligibility for disability and carers benefits, but it also identified the steps that we are taking to improve the data quality so that we can measure the take-up of those benefits more accurately. The steps include adding questions to the existing household surveys, amending questions in the surveys and exploring the feasibility of using health record data in due course. Proactive steps are under way to improve the situation.

Vana, would you like to add anything?

First, I say thank you to all those in the media who have shared information about Social Security Scotland. Part of the media’s role is to hold people to account, to scrutinise and to report, which is absolutely right, of course. When there is a positive story to tell and information that it is helpful to share, I urge the media to do that. I am grateful to all the individuals and media outlets that have done that so far, and I thank them in advance for what they will no doubt do in the future.

We really need to end the instances of some aspects of the media—thankfully, they are a minority—using terms such as “benefits cheats” and “scroungers”. That helps no one. We need to be in a position in future where such phrases are no longer printed in articles or elsewhere. The media will scrutinise the system, but we want to build integrity in the system and in the idea of social security, and that is a collective responsibility for us all, including the media and us as politicians.

Covid has, of course, impacted on all of us, not just in terms of the economy, our everyday lives and the health service. For MSPs, it has affected our ability to engage with constituents. It is, therefore, reasonable to note that it has also affected our approach to improving benefit take-up, but we have responded by adapting the ways in which we interact with clients and stakeholders, as you would expect.

We continue to gather insights to better understand how the pandemic is driving longer-term behaviour, which may impact on the channels that we use to promote benefits over the longer term. For example, we may use more radio and television and less print advertising, because people are not necessarily picking up printed materials in the same way as before, or in the same settings. We are always mindful that we should use a range of channels to be as inclusive as possible.

Covid has had an effect, and it has made an impact—[Interruption.] I am sorry—there is a radio going off. I will wait for silence, if I may.

Of course Covid has had an impact, but Social Security Scotland has been active and proactive in promoting our benefits throughout the period in the ways that it can. Committee members will have seen that on social media or through other mechanisms for stakeholder engagement and in the media. I will let Kirsten Sweeney elaborate on that from an agency perspective.

Thank you for those important questions.

First, I emphasise that we are in a most significant period in the devolution of social security, with the on-going pilot of CDP and its national roll-out from 22 November and as we go into the roll-out of adult disability payment next year.

On supporting SCOSS and making sure that it is able to undertake its role effectively and properly, we absolutely recognise that it does an invaluable job, as you and I have emphasised, and we are committed to providing both the time and the resources to allow it to do that properly. Ministers meet the chair and will meet the board soon and regularly engage with it. I emphasise that point. We acknowledge that SCOSS has been under pressure and we will always work with it as flexibly as we can to make sure that the demands on its workload are part of our considerations and that we are mindful of them. We work as flexibly as we can, for example in sharing drafts and providing additional information.

However, for both the Government and SCOSS, social security legislation is complex and is fast moving at this time. We aim to provide two months for the scrutiny of regulations but, as you have noted, that is not always possible.

It may be helpful if I remind the committee and emphasise that, in order to provide additional support, we are recruiting an additional two members of staff to support SCOSS, and that, when people are in post, the total secretariat resource will have more than doubled since the election; it will go up to five people. We are also recruiting an additional board member, as you may already be aware.

I turn to the points about the elements of the regulations that are before us that could not be scrutinised by SCOSS: the provisions on case transfer from disability living allowance to CDP. Those provisions were made under section 95 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 and there is no requirement under the act to refer provisions made under section 95 to SCOSS. Considering SCOSS’s incredibly busy programme of work on a variety of regulations, we did not wish to request the scrutiny of provisions that fall outwith its remit. That is why we did not refer those regulations. However, some provisions were shared for information and context to keep SCOSS sighted.

I hope that that reassures the member about the importance that we place on SCOSS’s work, the evaluation that it provides and the stakeholder engagement of which it is a part. We are determined to work collaboratively with SCOSS to ensure that it is suitably resourced in the future.

Our intention behind the child winter heating assistance has always been to mitigate the increased heating costs that the families of the most severely disabled children and young people incur as a result of having to sustain a higher temperature at home during winter due to the child’s or young person’s disability or long-term condition and having to heat their homes in the night due to night-time care needs.

When we launched the payment last year, we decided to base eligibility on entitlement to the highest rate of the care component of DLA. To receive that rate, an individual must need help or supervision throughout the day and night. At the time, we considered that to be an appropriate proxy for identifying individuals with the most severe needs who were likely to have increased heating costs.

Earlier this year, two individuals raised appeals in the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland after being determined ineligible for child winter heating assistance. Both had previously been entitled to the higher rate of the DLA care component. However, as a result of United Kingdom Government policy, on turning 16, they had to transfer to PIP. The appellants argued that it was unfair that they were not eligible for child winter heating assistance simply because of that required transfer.

Those appeals and stakeholder feedback prompted us to reconsider the regulations and the extent to which they meet the policy objective. That resulted in the draft amendment regulations that are before us, which extend eligibility for child winter heating assistance to individuals aged 16 to 18 who are on the enhanced rate of PIP daily living component.

The proposed regulations will allow child winter heating assistance to be paid to people who lost out last year. They will also remedy the situation going forward until the case transfer to CDP is completed. Moreover, they will ensure that we provide the payment to all the most severely disabled 16 to 18-year-olds in Scotland.

If the regulations are passed, this year’s payment will reach an additional 5,000 clients approximately, which will take the total number to more than 19,000. With energy prices rising substantially, that is an important step in our collective efforts to support some of society’s most vulnerable people.

I am grateful to Dr Sally Witcher and the Scottish Commission on Social Security for their assistance. I am also grateful to the individuals and stakeholders who have engaged constructively with us.

I welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in its consideration of the draft regulations and look forward to any questions that members have.

As I set out in my opening statement, our priority in this situation is to provide financial help to households with the most severely disabled children and young people, to mitigate increased costs that result from their potentially having to heat their homes to higher temperatures during winter and throughout the day and night. It is important to recognise that we are the only part of the UK to do that.

We consider that the highest rate of the care component of DLA and CDP and the enhanced rate of the daily living component of PIP are a reasonable proxy for identifying those with the highest care needs who might incur increased heating costs over winter. We therefore decided to extend entitlement to child winter heating assistance to all the young people who are entitled to the enhanced rate of the PIP daily living component only.

We appreciate that considerations are on-going around the general issue of energy costs and heating. The committee will note that, in its report on the draft amendment regulations, SCOSS recommended that,

“Following completion of the transition from DLA and PIP to CDP and ADP, the Scottish Government should review passporting arrangements to CWHA, to ensure consistency and equitable treatment of people with the same relevant needs, including specifically with regard to night-time care needs”,

and we accepted that recommendation. We also have a firm commitment to the formal evaluation and improvement of our social security payments that is based those findings. The evaluation results for child winter heating assistance will be available next year and we will, of course, consider the report’s findings carefully.