Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

The point about the primary legislation that was passed before the recess is almost a separate area of consideration, although I note and appreciate the accelerated timescale that we all engaged in to ensure that there was an additional December payment of the Scottish carers allowance supplement.

However, in regard to regulations more generally, looking back, we can see that the pandemic has had an effect on the delivery timetable. We are now in the process of working towards the important delivery timeframes for both CDP and ADP. The amendments to the regulations that we are considering are about improving the regulations following the experience of the pilot and consideration by the Government and Social Security Scotland on how to do the right thing and make improvements in advance of the national roll-out on 22 November 2021.

It is a fast-moving situation, because we are all determined to deliver social security benefits in Scotland and deliver them well. I would be happy to take that point away if you think that it would be helpful for us to set out any further information on the timetable.

Good morning. The regulations are required to support the introduction of child disability payment. For context, we started taking applications for child disability payment on 26 July, as part of a pilot. Child disability payment is the first regularly recurring disability benefit to be delivered by Social Security Scotland, and it will make a significant contribution to the lives of disabled children and young people in Scotland, their families and their carers. Feedback on the pilot has been positive so far. Its systems and processes are working well, and we remain on track to roll out child disability payment nationally from 22 November 2021.

Moreover, as I set out in my recent letter to the committee, 11 October marked the beginning of our ambitious case transfer process. The first disability living allowance for children awards have now been selected for transfer to child disability payment. Those individuals will continue to get the right payment at the right time, and they will not have to apply or be reassessed as part of the transfer process.

In relation to the regulations, the amendments that we are proposing are largely technical in nature. The amendments were identified as necessary after the principal regulations were passed. There is significant complexity in the principal regulations, in the case transfer process and in the interactions with the reserved system. The changes that we are seeking to make will reflect that, leading up to the national delivery of the benefit, we are continuously learning lessons and identifying areas in which we can improve arrangements.

The amendments will allow for young people to remain on CDP after the age of 18 in specific circumstances. They will clarify the period in which Social Security Scotland has to complete a redetermination, and they will extend the number of scenarios in which short-term assistance is payable. The changes will introduce further flexibility, bring more fairness to decision making and help to improve outcomes for disabled children and young people.

The amendments will enable child disability payment awards for case transfer clients to be backdated when one or more of the exceptions that are set out in the regulations are met. The exceptions relate to situations in which child disability payment awards resulting from the transfer process can be higher than the disability living allowance for children awards that they replace, due to differences in eligibility rules between the two benefits.

The backdating provisions ensure that those whose awards are selected later in the transfer process are not disadvantaged compared with those whose awards were chosen earlier, when one of the exceptions applies. Those rules were not included in the principal provisions because discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions on the effects of backdating on reserved systems were on-going at that point.

Although we expect the exceptions to apply to only a very small number of individuals, if any, it is important that no one whose award is transferred is worse off than they would have been had they made a new application. Consistency is important.

Before I conclude, I emphasise that I remain extremely grateful to Dr Sally Witcher and the Scottish Commission on Social Security for its scrutiny of the regulations and for its general work, leadership and scrutiny. However, I note that the case transfer provisions fall outwith its remit; that is an important point.

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

Could you be more specific with that question?

I will bring in David Hilber because he has been leading on development of the case transfer aspects of the regulations. Is that what you meant, Mr Balfour?