Chamber and committees

As set out in the Ministerial statement on the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan on 29 June, further work has been required to assess certain policy and delivery implications of the Scottish Child Payment.

As part of this work, we are considering a range of issues which includes assessment periods and verifying eligibility and entitlement. Our approach to this will be set out in regulations which we will submit to the Scottish Commission on Social Security in the autumn.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-25155 on 18 September 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The initial rate of the Scottish Child Payment, when the first payments are made in 2020-21, will be £10 per week, per eligible child. Its rate in future years will be informed by the approach we take to the uprating of the devolved benefits which we are currently consulting on, prior to the laying of the legislation in the Scottish Parliament in January 2020.

When it is fully rolled out, the rate of the Scottish Child Payment will be the same for all eligible children, in each age group.

Information about the number of applications received, and authorised as eligible for payment, for Best Start Grant by payment type up to the end of June 2019 is available at: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/SocialSecurityforScotland/BSGJune2019 .

Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts are for financial years. It produced a supplementary policy costing for Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment in September 2018 in which it forecasted 4,000 payments in 2018-19, based on a 1 December 2018 launch. The Scottish Fiscal Commission “Social Security – Best Start Grant (Pregnancy and Baby Grant) – September 2018” policy costing is available at: http://www.fiscalcommission.scot/publications/supplementary-costings/social-security-best-start-grant-pregnancy-and-baby-grant-september-2018/ . In comparison, Social Security Scotland received 19,465 applications for Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment in 2018-19. Of those, 11,505 had been authorised as eligible for payment by 31 March 2019.

The Scottish Government has given a commitment to uprate the Scottish Child Payment with inflation to ensure that its value always keeps up with rising prices, and provisions will be made for this in regulations.

On 2 September, we published a Policy Paper and Analytical Report, on the uprating measures that could be used to uprate devolved social security assistance. This can be found on the Scottish Parliament’s website: https://www.parliament.scot/S5_Social_Security/General%20Documents
/20190902_CabSecSSOP_to_Convener_uprating_measures.pdf .

The Social Security Committee and the Scottish Commission on Social Security have been asked to provide their views on the Scottish Government’s proposals for uprating by end October 2019.

These views will inform the decision on the uprating measure to be applied, in time for the Scottish Budget and prior to the laying of the legislation in the Scottish Parliament in January 2020.

As set out in the policy position paper, by the end of 2022 the Scottish Child Payment will be paid to all eligible children under the age of 16.

Continued policy and delivery development is being undertaken on the Scottish Child Payment, including our intended approach to assessment periods. This will be set out in regulations, and these will be submitted to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for scrutiny in the autumn.

The number of staff and grades required to support the delivery of Scottish Child Payment will depend upon an assessment of the impact of delivery of Scottish Child Payment, including staff resources. We will provide an update once the assessment has been completed.

In the first full year of payments to under 6’s (2021-22) policy costs are expected to be around £70 million, rising to £180 million in the first full year of full roll-out to under 16’s (2023-24). The total establishment cost of the new payment to the end of this parliament, including implementation and administration, is estimated to be in the region of £32.5 million (across 2019-20 and 2020-21).

The information provided on pages 2 to 5 of the policy position paper demonstrates how the options examined in the Analysis of Options report informed our policy choices. As set out in the policy position paper, ‘having taken into consideration both the policy modelling and analysis, the delivery and timing implications and the impact on the existing Social Security Programme, we concluded that a refined version of Option 2, as set out in the analysis report, is one that balances the risks against the benefits.’

The detail of our chosen policy approach and the associated costs are set out in the policy position paper. The option we are taking forward most closely corresponds to Option 2(b) in the Analysis of Options.

In introducing the Scottish Child Payment the Scottish Government prioritised the delivery route which would deliver the benefit to the quickest timescales and with the least impact on the remaining devolved benefits. The option of an automated delivery model for Universal Credit(UC), which would have required these additional interfaces with legacy benefits for those who had not yet migrated onto UC, was considered as part of our assessment of all potential options, and discounted following discussion with senior officials and Ministers as it was not deemed to be the best fit with this objective.