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As detailed in the letter sent to the Public Audit and Post-Legislative Scrutiny Committee (copied to the Social Security Committee) on 7 December 2017, please see the following table setting out current estimated IT costs for the social security programme, inclusive of VAT and the relevant levels of optimism bias.

Current Expected IT Costs

Social Security Scotland client advisors undertake a rigorous induction and training programme to ensure that can deliver advice and services with dignity, fairness and respect.

Social Security Scotland does not use telephony scripts when engaging with our clients.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-18037 on 17 August 2018. 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

The current value of the IBM contract is publically available on the Public Contracts Scotland website.

The original £8.3 million value of the contract was to support the development and implementation of four Scottish Government benefits and the revised contract delivers much more than we originally asked for.

A four year breakdown of the cost of the contract is not available. It currently runs until October 2019, with an option to extend. The bulk of the projected costs therefore fall in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Local authorities have discretion over how the Scottish Welfare Fund is delivered in their area. This allows the scheme to be tailored to reflect the needs of individuals in their local communities. Local authorities maintain relationships with a range of partners, including money advice agencies who can provide advice and assistance to potential applicants.

The 2019-20 Social Security budget includes £77.8 million to support the programme of delivery. This includes provision to support the delivery of disability assessments, including the recent contract awarded to Deloitte. That contract is worth £2.3 million over 2 years, and will focus on the design of the assessment centre network across Scotland, including working with users to look at what major improvements on the current UK system are necessary.

The following table shows hours of overtime claimed by permanent staff directly employed by the Scottish Government. We pay contractors a daily rate and therefore overtime does not apply. No overtime was claimed by temporary staff. The data provided is from May 2018 onwards which is from the first overtime claim we have recorded.

All Programme Management and Delivery staff have access to the Scottish Government Employee Assistance programme (EAP). The programme provides professional support and guidance to those experiencing emotional, practical, health and social problems. Includes support via telephone, face to face and mail and includes one to one counselling services as well as 24 hours a day, 365 days a year access to confidential helplines for all staff.

The EAP provides a Health and Wellbeing zone for all staff and family members – including; stress management solutions, health and nutrition advice and access to wellness regimes.

The EAP is sign posted via our internal intranet pages to all staff and also to new recruits during the Directorate specific induction. Staff are also directed to the following sources of support.

• People and Advice Wellbeing team (part of SG People Directorate)
• People Advice and Wellbeing Counsellor (part of SG People Directorate)
• Trade Unions
• Mental Health First Aiders
• Mental Health and Wellbeing network
• Charity for Civil Servants
• HR Helpdesk

There is a rolling series of learning events available to all programme staff including sessions on:-

• mental health awareness
• mental health awareness for managers
• identifying stress and building resilience for managers
• building personal resilience
• handling sensitive conversations with confidence.

The number of households in each local authority that are experiencing fuel poverty is published annually in the Scottish House Condition Survey local authority tables.

Local Authority figures are based on a 3-year pooled sample to allow sufficient sample sizes to produce results on each local authority. The figures in Table 1 shows the numbers of fuel poor households and the fuel poverty rate based on the most recent 10 of the 3-year pooled samples, for Midlothian, East Lothian and Scottish Borders.

These estimates are based on the current definition of fuel poverty as set out in the 2002 Scottish Fuel Poverty Statement. There are proposed changes to this definition in the Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill , which is currently progressing through Parliament.

Table : Fuel poverty rates and number of fuel poor households in Midlothian, East Lothian and Scottish Borders over 10 periods of 3-year pooled sample datasets.