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Social Security Scotland have a positive and ongoing engagement with the Scottish Union of Supported Employment. We are working in partnership with the Scottish Union of Supported Employment to ensure potential candidates for roles within Social Security Scotland are provided with information, encouragement and support.

Social Security Scotland has formed a close working relationship with Remploy who are the Delivery Partner for Fair Start Scotland for the Tayside area. We are working in partnership with Remploy to ensure potential candidates for roles within Social Security Scotland are provided with information, encouragement and support.

All permanent appointments to Social Security Scotland are through a fair and open recruitment process involving formal assessment and interview. We do not hold data on the number of candidates with a relationship with Remploy who have been made offers.

We are engaging closely with people who have a lived experience of accessing disability assistance to co-design an application process that is straightforward, accessible, and enables individuals to put across the information they think best describes their daily lives.

The documents cited are subject to a non-disclosure agreement as they contain sensitive information that is not yet in the public domain.

Social Security Scotland’s interim headquarters at Dundee House in Dundee and the Glasgow office at 220 High Street are both situated close to main bus routes and mainline rail stations.

Proximity to public transport links, frequency and volume of services and the availability of ground floor public spaces were key criterion in the analytical process which rated the shortlisted buildings in each city.

The interim Headquarters in Dundee and Glasgow office are fully compliant with Equalities Act legislation.

At the event held on 11 September, we had the opportunity to engage with a range of interested suppliers in order to help inform the service design procurement going forward.

The Social Security Experience Panels provided extensive input into the Disability Benefits Discovery work, particularly in relation to their experiences of the current system of assessments. This work has influenced the development of the contract, although they were not directly involved in the development of the Service Design contract or Prior Information Notice.

Accessibility and mobility access both to the interim buildings was a key criteria in arriving at the interim headquarters in Dundee and the office in Glasgow. A crucial component of this analysis was the accessibility of these buildings. The accessibility component considered the buildings themselves and their surrounding environments.

We are carrying out ongoing user research and we have also conducted research through our Experience Panel of people with lived experience of social security. A report on this research will be published in November 2018.

Both the Social Security Directorate and Social Security Scotland internal guidance on language is taking account of the emerging findings. These findings include feedback that ‘benefits’ is the most widely and easily understood term for a form of social security assistance and the word ‘client’ is the preferred word for someone in receipt of a benefit.

We intend to publish this as supplementary information with the Invitation to Tender (ITT) which, as it stands, will be issued to suppliers registered on the Scottish Governments Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) Lot 1 – Digital Outcomes.