Chamber and committees

The Social Security Agency will not employ any staff until it goes live later this year. For reporting purposes temporary agency staff and temporary contract staff are recorded as contingent workers. As of end March 2018 the number of Full Time Equivalent contingent workers in (a) Directorate was 22 and (b) Social Security Agency Implementation Division was 10.

Since the passing of the Scotland Act in March 2016, officials from the Scottish Government have held frequent discussions with officials from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about a range of policy, operational and delivery issues to ensure the safe and secure transfer of the 11 devolved benefits and the Universal Credit flexibilities. This has included a number of discussions about Universal Credit split payments.

The Supported Accommodation Steering Group has met on 4 occasions to date:

24 October 2017, 30 November 2017, 30 January 2018 and 17 April 2018.

The members of the Supported Accommodation Steering Group are:

Michael McClements, COSLA

Tony Cain, ALACHO

Jeremy Hewer, SFHA

David Bookbinder, Glasgow West of Scotland Housing Forum

Yvette Burgess, Housing Support Enabling Unit

Amanda Britain, CIH

Jo Ozga, Scottish Woman’s Aid

Fiona Stringfellow, Blue Triangle Housing Association

Angela Currie, Blackwood Group

June Deans, Glasgow City Council

Julie Hunter, North Lanarkshire Council

Jules Oldham, Homeless Action Scotland

SG Staff

Graham Thomson (chair), Better Homes - Supported Accommodation Team

Dawn Abell, Social Security Directorate

Joseph Jobling, Communities Analytical Services

Sarah Newton, Communities Analytical Services

Tracy McKen, Better Homes - Supported Accommodation Team

The planned programme of work will allow the Supported Accommodation Steering Group to make recommendations to Ministers by the end of December 2018.

Ensuring equality of opportunity to enable people to join and move through the organisation is a key consideration within Scottish Government, including ensuring our people are able to access the equipment and environment required to allow them to contribute fully.

In addition to any accessibility features built into operating systems and standard software packages, the following software is classed as Assistive Technology and is currently available and for use on the Scottish Government’s IT network:

JAWS (version 18)

ZoomText (version 11)

Dragon Professional (version 15)

TextHelp (version 11.5)

Kurzweil 1000 (version 14.02)

MindGenius (version 6)

As new versions of these software packages are released then these will be made available.

We have not carried out a formal assessment of the impact of the minimum income floor on the Council Tax Reduction scheme. The Scottish Government will continue to proactively amend the Council Tax Reduction scheme where evidence indicates any element of its impact or operation is unsatisfactory.

In cases where the Universal Credit minimum income floor had been applied an applicant could potentially receive a lower level of Council Tax reduction. The Scottish Government is currently exploring options for changes to the CTR scheme in light of Universal Credit and the changing benefit landscape, and the minimum income floor will form part of those considerations.

The Scottish Government does not collect this information, and we are not aware which, if any, local authorities choose to do so.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-15427 on 18 April 2018, the Scottish Government does not currently have access to the data required to estimate the overall impact of income tax changes on Universal Credit expenditure in Scotland.

Some households will receive more UC as a result of paying more income tax. It is not yet possible to determine whether this will result in a net gain (or a net loss) for the UK or Scottish Governments.

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