Chamber and committees

As always, it is about how we utilise Government mechanisms, the statutory services and interactions with voluntary organisations and representative groups to raise awareness in their networks proactively and within communal space and other means by which people interact or gather together, using proactive communications through social media and other mechanisms, and giving a strong emphasis to the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland using our channels and trying to get others to amplify through their networks to do all that we can to encourage benefit take-up in Scotland and ensure that people get what they are entitled to, because we want them to have that, and we want to support them.

We know from our experience with the best start foods payment that individuals like such payments to be made early in December, and part of the reason for the expedited timetable is to ensure that we can deliver that.

As you would expect, I listened attentively to the previous evidence. We were unable to make the payment in June because of the Parliament’s timetable in the run-up to the end of the parliamentary session and the fact that there was no capacity to consider primary legislation. However, as was pointed out in the previous evidence session, the timing of this payment—in December—will be very welcome to many, given the budget pressures that people face at that time.

With regard to future years, the allocation has been made in this year’s budget to make the payment proposed in the bill. There are questions with regard to what will happen in future years, which is why we are seeking to create this enabling power, and it will be a question for the budget process, which will begin shortly for the whole Parliament, whether resource will be set aside and applied next year. In the bill, we want to create the enabling power to facilitate that, should that be the Parliament’s decision.

Those are all incredibly important points. Although the interactions between carers allowance and universal credit continue to be a key consideration in developing Scottish carers assistance, there are no feasible delivery mechanisms in this primary legislation to address that. That is why we need to work collectively on the delivery of the new benefit of Scottish carers assistance and consider all those points around eligibility, which are extremely important.

I do not know whether the committee will touch on Scottish carers assistance later in today’s considerations; I can come back to some of those points in due course, if that is okay.

I am glad that Pam Duncan-Glancy asked that question, because it allows me to clarify that, when I talked earlier about 2025, I meant that that is when we aim to have completed case transfer. In the process of delivering Scottish carers assistance, we are looking into what eligibility changes we can make, and we are in discussions with the DWP and others on that. I talked earlier about the fact that we will be consulting this winter and we have engaged extensively with unpaid carers and organisations that represent them over the past five years to consider ways to improve social security support for unpaid carers.

Through that work we have developed a series of aims for Scottish carers assistance and a range of options for change; those include considerations around the earning threshold, removing the restrictions for those in full-time education and increasing the period of time for which payments can continue following the death of a cared-for person. Those are a number of points of consideration and those options are currently undergoing detailed objective evaluation to make sure that we take forward the right combination of changes at the right time and in the right way to ensure the best outcomes for carers.

The important point in Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question and my answer so far is the complex interactions between carer benefits and the reserved benefits system, which means that this bill is not the time to try to rush through changes to existing carer benefits. We need to do that through the development of Scottish carers assistance, because we need to make sure that there are no unforeseen consequences and that it can be delivered.

If Parliament passes the bill, we have the finance secured and the delivery mechanism through Social Security Scotland to get the money into people’s pockets in December, which is what we want to do. We need to collectively consider as a Parliament how we support carers more widely in the development of Scottish carers assistance.

I will conclude with some information that I hope will be helpful in answer to your question. At this stage, we continue to make good progress on the launch of Scottish carers assistance. We have finished pre-discovery work with the DWP and have made sure that we have a full understanding of current carers allowance processes. There is a question around processes and delivery and we need to make sure that agencies can successfully get resources to people in a practical way.

As I said, we are about to commence, in the next quarter, feasibility work on how we will deliver Scottish carers assistance. Our aim is to begin build for Scottish carers assistance in the new year, and we expect a minimum of 18 months of build. All that work needs to go in to ensure that the systems are effective and there is robust delivery. Given the complex interactions between carer benefits and the reserved benefits system, we need to be cognisant of that.

I hope that that reassures Pam Duncan-Glancy that work is being undertaken at pace and that we are looking to make a difference for unpaid carers in Scotland as quickly as we can.

Does Kate Thomson-McDermott want to come in with any further points on that, if I have not covered everything that should be said?

I noted with interest the differing opinions on the first panel on that issue. That is a point of consideration for our future benefit of Scottish carers assistance, but at the moment we need to stay focused on the window for the December payment and the fact that the carers allowance supplement is the only feasible mechanism that we have that does not risk the on-going delivery and consideration of the live benefits that we currently deliver and the roll-out of new benefits.

The issue that Evelyn Tweed raises is a point of consideration, but at the moment we are very focused on delivering the December payment.

Absolutely. We will consider it, and I look forward to doing so with the committee.

We committed to the carers allowance supplement in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, so that is guaranteed every year and has been since 2018, when it was the first devolved benefit to be introduced. The additional amount, which we paid in 2020 and are seeking, through the bill, to pay again in December in the budgetary year 2021-22, will be guaranteed if the bill is passed.

We are creating the enabling power for that to be able to happen next year, should that be the will of the Parliament, but I do not think that it is prudent or correct, at this point, to set a position for future years. Of course, we will introduce Scottish carers assistance. Collectively, we will make decisions on what that will include and how it will be set.

We are creating an enabling power that will mean that, should there be a requirement and a desire from the Parliament to make a payment again in the next financial year, we have the mechanism to enable us to do that. There will, of course, be questions around resource and adequacy in our collective considerations around Scottish carers assistance.

Our analysis is based on our ability to deliver a payment and on the feedback that we had on the difference that it made last year, as well as on our engagement with stakeholders and carers organisations. We were told how much of an impact the payment made during the pandemic.

I appreciate the wider concerns about carers assistance and the level of provision for carers more generally. That is an important question for all of us as we work towards the introduction of Scottish carers assistance. However, we can feasibly deliver the supplement, both in practical terms through the mechanisms of Social Security Scotland, and within the budget that has already been set for this financial year. We have secured the resource that is necessary to make the payment.

I know that there are pressures on carers and family budgets. That is why the Government is taking a range of measures and actions to assist communities and families across Scotland with those pressures. The proposed payment is an important further contribution to support carers at this time, but I appreciate that some people will still face pressures on their finances. We are very aware of that.

Through the evaluation that we published in December 2020, we have a good understanding of the impact on carers of the carers allowance supplement, and we know that it makes a difference. The questions around what can be financed within this year are also part of the budgetary process. That is the question that differentiates this payment from future budget considerations, where we would be thinking as a Parliament about what we would set in the forthcoming budget, in order to make those payments in the year ahead. We have had to secure that resource within the current budget and we have been able to do that at the rate that we paid previously, which we know, through our evaluation, has made an impact.

Does Andrew Strong want to make any further points?

The passporting considerations that you have highlighted are some of the main barriers. We should be mindful that a key aspect of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was that carers allowance supplement was a temporary measure to provide assistance as quickly as we could while we continued to build up and deliver Scottish carers assistance. The fact that, at £67.60 a week, carers allowance is the lowest of all working-age benefits was part of our considerations around that and why we wanted to act.

Under the overlapping benefits rule, carers with an underlying entitlement will typically be in receipt of benefits that are paid at a higher rate. Carers can be in receipt of both the carers element of universal credit and carers allowance and, therefore, the carers allowance supplement. There is a helpful element there in extending eligibility for the coronavirus carers allowance supplement, which was what we did last year under the coronavirus legislation.

To include carers with underlying entitlement would have required significant resources from Social Security Scotland and social security staff in the Scottish Government, and engagement with the DWP to develop new processes. That is a real challenge and remains so, so it would have taken longer to deliver the payment and it would have needed to be supported by the DWP.

That is why the priority for Social Security Scotland was to make sure that people continued to apply for and receive existing benefits. Extending eligibility for existing benefits would have put additional pressure on those services when they were needed most, which is why we decided to make an additional payment through the carers allowance supplement to get the resource to people as quickly and expediently as possible.