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The SG’s consultation on the Fraud Code of Practice has recently closed and is now being analysed. No decisions have been taken on the practical implementation of this and the systems that may be used.

Administration funding is given to local authorities by the Scottish Government to maintain the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF), raising awareness of SWF using this funding is at their discretion. The Scottish Government is not aware of television advertising being used by any local authorities to encourage applications to the SWF.

We have sought to develop accessible application processes for the Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment, to meet the needs of different groups. Applicants have a choice of application routes and can apply on the phone, online (including on a mobile phone) and on a paper form.

The Scottish Government continually assesses the effectiveness of the SWF through management information of applications, awards and expenditure. We work closely with local authorities, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and third sector organisations, as well as seeking views of users of the SWF through experience panels and social media platforms. In this way we can ensure that the most vulnerable people in our society receive help when they need it. The Scottish Government has continued to maintain funding for the SWF at  £38 million per year.

There are no plans for a separate review at this stage.

Under the Consolidated Budgeting Rules that the Scottish Government is required to follow there is no net impact on the Scottish Budget as a result of the transfer of Carer’s Allowance debt.

The Scottish Government is holding a Race Equality Action Plan (REAP) Conference 11 December 2018 to update stakeholders on progress of actions in the REAP, including in relation to employment and work. This will also be a spring board for organising the summit on minority ethnic employment and enterprise which we will hold during the spring 2019.

The Scottish Government set out its' ambition to extend Winter Fuel Payments to families with disabled children on the higher rate of DLA as part of the Consultation on Social Security in Scotland in July 2016.

The commitment to extending winter fuel payments to families with severely disabled children was also included in our Programme for Government published in September 2016. Details of our Programme for Government were shared with the UK government as a matter of course.

We are actively working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the devolution of powers works for both the people of Scotland the UK.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 impose obligations on the use of all personal data held by the Scottish Government. They require personal data to be processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security and confidentiality of the personal data.

Most employee (or prospective employee) diversity information is classed as special category data under data protection laws which requires greater care when processing to protect security and confidentiality.

Producing data sets with less than 5 counts, risks being able to link that data to individuals and hence to identify them. For this reason, the data is suppressed.

The Scottish Government doesn’t receive any information from the DWP about clients who may have been overpaid Carer’s Allowance.

No payments of Carer’s Allowance Supplement have been recovered and a recovery process has not been initiated for any payments.