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Since I last updated the committee on this, work has been on-going and we have continued our engagement with SCOSS. I cannot say enough how grateful we are for the work that SCOSS does and its input towards our collective determination to build a social security system that is as effective as possible and shaped as it should be in order to serve the people who we wish to assist.

As I have discussed before with the committee, the Government has made and will be fulfilling commitments around helping SCOSS with extra secretariat resource and practical support in order to undertake its important work.

One of the challenges of 2021 was the pressure on SCOSS because of the number of regulations that it had to consider, not just those within the programme but additional regulations that emerged through circumstance and events—for example, the regulations on people from Afghanistan settling in Scotland. There is an ambition to ensure that SCOSS has adequate resource and time to assess regulations, but we are subject to not only our programme but events.

I can confirm and reassure the committee that the resource to support SCOSS is in progress. As part of the formal follow-up to which I have already committed, I would be happy to provide a little more information on that, if that would be helpful for Pam Duncan-Glancy and the committee more widely.

Kirsten—are you able to give some clarity from a legal position, please?

On Mr Balfour’s last question, I say just for clarity, convener, that the arrangements are in place, as stated. I will set out the nature of the arrangements between the agency, practitioners and health boards. Mr Balfour asked about the formal position; I want to make sure that I am clear in elaborating on the wider circumstances of engagement with practitioners and health boards, which I will do as a follow-up.

That is an important area, and it relates to why we are introducing the regulations. We want to avoid overpayments as much as possible and to ensure that there is engagement with individuals. Through the regulations, we want to encourage contact and engagement in order to avoid overpayments building up.

Miles Briggs asked about self-assessment rather than an objective test. That issue has been considered with SCOSS and was considered a number of years ago during the passage of the bill that became the Social Security Administration and Tribunal Membership (Scotland) Act 2020. At that time, as members will be aware, almost all stakeholders expressed the view that there must be consideration of hardship when a decision is made to suspend assistance. We, of course, agreed with that. If an individual self-assesses that suspending payment would cause them hardship, stakeholders strongly believe—rightly, in our view—that ministers should not suspend assistance when requested information is not provided.

All that considered, the benefit of the self-assessment approach is that suspension decisions will be straightforward for Social Security Scotland to process and should result in very few requests for a review of the decision to suspend. We are not convinced that a proportionate approach would be for Social Security Scotland to objectively assess hardship, given the added complexity that that would introduce. Assessing hardship would take longer, and that delay could lead to more overpayments accruing in some cases. That links back to Miles Briggs’s important question.

As I said, an objective test would be more onerous on individuals and would be less satisfactory for them as clients. Compared with the self-assessment approach, an objective test would also be more administratively complex for Social Security Scotland.

All that considered, we believe that objectively assessing hardship would cause delays, which would lead to overpayments accruing. Therefore, the self-assessment approach is the best one to take on such matters.

There are a number of variables in how an individual responds to the request for information. If they respond within 28 days stating that assistance being suspended would place them in hardship or that they are not able to provide the information, that would of course initiate a further process of engagement with the individual on their circumstances.

To be clear, suspension will be used as a last resort by Social Security Scotland and it will be used only when an individual fails to engage for a minimum period of 28 days. When assistance is suspended, Social Security Scotland will issue the individual with a notice explaining that their entitlement to assistance might be ended if the requested information is not provided within 28 days of the notice. As I said, ending an individual’s benefit will be a last resort and will be done only if all alternative means of obtaining the requested information, which is needed to accurately determine entitlement, have been exhausted.

Those are two important questions, which I will touch on briefly just now. It might also be helpful for Mr Briggs if I get a response from Social Security Scotland as to our current position.

I have regular calls with senior members of Social Security Scotland staff and, from a very recent call, I can say that recruitment is going well—we are pleased with progress. Part of the recruitment is of health and social care staff and that has been progressing successfully. Wider engagement with health boards is also in a positive place. If it would be helpful for Mr Briggs and the committee more widely, I will elaborate on that further in an update in writing over and above what I have just said.

We encourage parents with shared care to decide who should make a claim. The number of people who will be affected by the changes to the rules is likely to be minimal, as I said in my opening statement. We do not anticipate that the proposed change will deter parents from undertaking shared care. We shared the draft regulations with our stakeholder group and no feedback was received about such an outcome, so I do not believe that our approach will disincentivise shared care.

That is certainly not the position that we envisage as things stand. As I set out in my opening statement and my previous answers, we are making these changes because of issues that have arisen as a result of the entitlement to reserved benefits and the effect that that has on our devolved benefits. We are making changes to make sure that the person with responsibility for the child receives the devolved benefit. We will continue to keep the regulations, as we do all our regulations and our benefits, under continuous review and seek to make improvements where appropriate and where possible.

That is an important point. The chair of SCOSS and I have discussed these issues and the amount of consideration that SCOSS has had to give to different sets of regulations over the recent period. We are very mindful of that. I have spoken previously at committee about the extra resourcing that we are providing to SCOSS in the period ahead. The ambition is to give SCOSS adequate time to evaluate as appropriate and as required.

We have faced a number of developments in recent months that have required evaluation and engagement from SCOSS that were not anticipated—for example, the regulations around those coming to the UK from Afghanistan required consideration quickly, and that was unexpected.

Is the ambition to reduce the demand on SCOSS in the period ahead? Yes. Are we grateful for SCOSS’s engagement and work over the last months? Absolutely. Will we continue to work constructively with SCOSS to make sure that it has the resources that it requires? Yes, we will.

There are wider considerations in Mr Balfour’s question around the qualifying benefit, which also relate to the regulations that are before us today. Of course, under the agency agreement, the DWP continues to deliver the carers allowance and the supplement and, this year, the additional payment, so the considerations are around the qualifying benefit.

The points that Mr Balfour raises are pertinent and important with regard to the development of the Scottish carers assistance in the period ahead, and we will publish our consultation on that shortly. These are points of consideration. I am happy to respond with any further points of information or interest above what I have said, but I can say right now that those issues will be considerations in the period ahead as we look at the development of Scottish carers assistance.