Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Thursday, May 30, 2024

Official Report 718KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 [Draft]

Welcome back. Our next item of business is consideration of the draft Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024, which is an affirmative statutory instrument. As the instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, Parliament must approve it before it comes into force.

I welcome to the meeting Shirley-Anne Somerville, who is the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, and her officials from the Scottish Government. Jane Sterry is the team leader for the carer support payment policy and Ross Grimley is a lawyer for the Scottish Government. I thank you all for joining us today. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider a motion to approve the instrument.

I remind everyone that Scottish Government officials can speak under this item but not in the debate that will follow. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

Good morning, convener. The carer support payment launched in November last year in Dundee City, Perth and Kinross and the Western Isles. It is a key step in our work to transform financial support for unpaid carers and to build a different system that is based on dignity, fairness and respect, recognising the value of unpaid care and providing greater stability and support for carers.

The carer support payment is already delivering an improved service, which was developed through work with carers and those who support them, and it extends support to many full-time students who are unable to get carers allowance.

Those improvements are in addition to the extra support that is already available to carers through our carers allowance supplement. That supplement is available only in Scotland. In fact, our three Scotland-only carer benefits—the carer support payment, the young carer grant and the carers allowance supplement—mean that, in 2024-25, we are investing £60 million more than the UK Government in carer benefits.

Carers allowance is the most complex benefit that we are replacing, as it links with a range of other support. The pilot and our planned roll-out approach have been designed to allow us to ensure that robust systems are in place between Social Security Scotland and the Department for Work and Pensions, so that carers continue to get all of the support to which they are entitled.

In February this year, we also began the automatic transfer of carers allowance awards to the carer support payment. That process is taking place across Scotland, with no need for carers to re-apply for support and no gaps in entitlement. I am grateful to officials from across the UK for their continued support in that work.

We are now ready to expand the benefit to more carers and the regulations that you are considering today will, if approved, make the carer support payment available in a further 10 local authorities this summer, starting with Angus and North and South Lanarkshire in June, and across Scotland from November 2024.

The draft regulations also include special backdating rules to ensure that carers do not lose out on support because they live in areas that are in later phases of the roll-out, and they will introduce, from October to June, a further extension of eligibility to carers aged 16 to 19 in full-time, non-advanced education, with certain exceptional circumstances.

I extend my thanks to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for its scrutiny of the draft amendment regulations. I am pleased to note that each of its recommendations has been accepted.

We know that clear communication of the roll-out approach will be key to its success. We are working with the DWP to ensure that both it and Social Security Scotland are providing clear information to carers on the approach, to ensure that carers continue to access all the support to which they are entitled through the carer support payment and any linked benefits.

I appreciate this opportunity to assist the committee in its consideration of the regulations, and I am happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Our questions will be directed to you, but you are welcome to invite any official to respond, should you wish to do so.

First, I am delighted to hear that carers allowance in North and South Lanarkshire will shortly benefit from the Scottish Government’s carer support payment, particularly as my constituency of East Kilbride is in South Lanarkshire. As the roll-out widens, my constituents will warmly welcome that new support. What work has been going on to raise awareness of that payment in the new pilot areas?

I appreciate that it is not directly your constituency, but I was in Motherwell recently to speak to carers there about the difference that Social Security Scotland’s approach has made to them—both for them as carers and for those they care for. It was a fantastic opportunity for me to meet people and to hear not only about the further improvements that we need to make but about the difference that our approach is already making for people. That was a really useful event for me and my officials to take part in.

As I said in my opening remarks, the on-going work to raise awareness is absolutely vital in enabling people to have an understanding of what is happening and in taking away any stress particularly for those who are in the process of case transfer, who will know that there is no obligation on them to do anything. There have, therefore, been a number of stakeholder events for the roll-out, including online roadshows, and further roadshows are planned. So far, those have been attended by around 270 representatives from, for example, welfare rights organisations and carer support organisations—the people the committee would expect us to be in contact with.

From the roll-out date in June, there will also be further publicity through media, social media and so on to ensure that we get the message across in a generic sense but also particularly to those networks that are already trusted by carers and those they care for.

Thank you. That is helpful.

Given that I am on the Finance and Public Administration Committee, you will not be surprised to hear that I want to ask about the financial effects that I read about in the policy note, which says that the Scottish Fiscal Commission has decided not to produce any forecasts because there will not be a material impact. However, will there be any financial impact as a result of the regulations?

In essence, the financial impact will be in terms of the extended eligibility. There will be a financial impact in that sense, which, I think, we discussed in greater detail when we took through the original regulations for the pilot area. Also, as I heard when I was in Motherwell, there could be an increase in the number of people who come forward for benefits because they are entitled to them and they are being encouraged and feel that the system is supportive.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission will present its forecasts as best it can with the information that we have, and, as we go on, it and we will learn how that eligibility has made an impact and about particular aspects such as how many more people are being encouraged to come forward for their entitlement who may not have done so under the previous system. It is exceptionally challenging to forecast that, but I think that the Scottish Fiscal Commission has been cognisant of that to date and will continue to be. Those discussions were already baked in when we took through the regulations for the original pilot.

Therefore, although you are changing some of the dates for when things are starting, there will not be any serious impact in the current year, 2024-25. Can you put any figure on that?

I do not have a figure for that to hand. We can certainly check, but we do not expect this to involve a change in the number of people who come forward. This is a change in dates rather than anything else, so it is something that we have already planned for.

I want to follow up an exchange in the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee about what qualifies as a temporary break in care. A concern was raised about people who are in a period of legal detention and whether the policy intention that that would qualify as a temporary break in care would be met by the regulations. I understand that there was an exchange of letters to confirm that that is still the policy intention, but does the cabinet secretary want to put anything on the record about that concern, which was raised by that committee?

Yes, and my thanks should go not just to this committee and SCOSS but to the DPLRC for its work on this. We appreciate very much the feedback on the regulations. We have laid out in correspondence to the committee that the carer support regulations on breaks in care have been drafted to mirror the carers allowance legislation, which has been in force since the mid-1970s, I think. Therefore, those who need to interpret the regulations have an understanding of the language and how it has been interpreted, and that has been the case for some time.

If we were starting from scratch, with absolutely nothing in place, we might have approached the drafting and the wording slightly differently. However, the instrument has been drafted in a way that is well recognised within the system and well understood by those who use it—those involved in welfare rights and those who will be supporting carers. Importantly for carers, the policy intent behind the instrument is well understood by Social Security Scotland, and that understanding will be used in how it is interpreted.

10:30  

SCOSS advises that a significant number of full-time student carers are expected to be eligible for the carers support payment in the final phase of the roll-out. As that is likely to put additional pressure on Social Security Scotland, are you confident that training and other support and resources will be in place to assist staff to deal with the volume of those applications?

Yes, because, as I hope we have demonstrated today and in my previous attendance in relation to the initial regulations, the roll-out has been well planned. We know what our anticipated caseload will be within the agency; therefore, any changes that have to be made to resources within the agency have been planned for.

An important aspect of how the agency operates is the fact that there are a number of different ways in which the workforce can move flexibly from one area to another. I appreciate that, in some areas, there are specialisms within those teams, but the agency is cognisant of the need to flex depending on what is happening. This is an exceptionally busy year for the agency—in fact, it is the busiest year that the agency will see going forward—but all of that has been planned out in the workforce forecasting that we have done, and we do not anticipate any issues.

We will, of course, keep a close eye on that. The committee will be well aware that I have kept a close eye on the work that I have asked the agency to instigate around processing times to make sure that those come down, because they were too long when we introduced the child disability payment and the adult disability payment. That situation is absolutely moving in the right direction, so I think that, importantly, we can reassure clients who may be coming to the agency for other benefits that there will be no disbenefit to them, because things have been carefully planned.

I am pleased to see this affirmative instrument, which seems to fall in line with the Government’s approach, as it is ambitious in its intent but cautious and careful in the roll-out. The £60 million of additional money that is being spent on carers in Scotland is evidence of that ambition.

You mentioned a backdating protocol that exists so that individuals do not lose out, and you alluded to an individual moving from a local authority that is part of the pilot to one that is not, or vice versa. How will that be identified by Social Security Scotland, and how will people be encouraged to fill in the appropriate forms in order to get that backdating of benefit?

It is exceptionally important that the rules around backdating are understood and that it is clear that, if an individual is eligible for backdating, it is the agency rather than the client that is responsible for doing the necessary work .

The carers who meet the eligibility criteria for the carer support payment but not carers allowance and who live outside the initial pilot area will be able to have their award backdated to the pilot launch of the benefit if they apply within 13 weeks of the benefit being available in their area or if they have good reason for applying later. It is the same form, but, if there is a recognition in the form that the applicant is a student, processes within the agency will kick in at that point, so that the client does not have to do any additional work or provide any more forms—that will be taken care of by the agency.

As we have no further questions, we move to formal consideration of motion S6M-13023.

Motion moved,

That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.

Motion agreed to.

A draft report will be prepared by the clerks. Are members content to consider that report in private at next week’s meeting?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for attending. That concludes our public business for today, and we will now move into private session to consider the remaining items on the agenda.

10:36 Meeting continued in private until 11:14.