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As the executive competence for the administration of a benefit transfers to Scotland, Social Security Scotland will publish statistics for Scotland on that benefit. In line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, publication dates for statistics for Social Security Scotland from 2018 onwards will be pre-announced through a 12-month release calendar, giving a specific release date at least four weeks in advance where practicable.

The Experience Panels research plan for 2018-19 can be found on the Scottish Government website at the following link: https://beta.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/corporate-report/2017/06/social-security-scotland-bill-privacy-impact-assessment/documents/social-security-experience-panels-2018-2019-research-plan/social-security-experience-panels-2018-2019-research-plan/govscot%3Adocument . It contains estimated publication dates for each project. Please note these are subject to change.

Scottish Government support for advice services is intended to maximise household resources and ensure people understand their statutory rights and have recourse to redress if those rights are not upheld.

The Scottish Government is funding a part-time welfare advice service facilitator in 2018-19 to support the embedding of Welfare Advice Services in Health and Social Care settings, with a particular focus on general practice and early years.

Provision of welfare advice is a matter for individual NHS Boards and general practices and we do not hold information centrally on where advisers are located.

Social Security Scotland's strategic objectives will be introduced in the Agency's Corporate Plan. The Corporate Plan will be published shortly, as an interim document. As with everything it does, Social Security Scotland will develop and iterate its strategic objectives in collaboration with stakeholder communities. An updated version of the Corporate Plan, which reflects this consultation and collaboration, will be published next year.

Sectarian hate crime - like any hate crime - has a hugely damaging effect on victims and communities so it is important that everybody plays their part to challenge it. That is why we fully support Police Scotland in taking robust action to both tackle hate crime and increase the confidence of victims to report incidents either directly to them or to a Third Party reporting centre.

The Scottish Government received more than 300 applications for the core group but, unfortunately, none of these were from black or minority ethnic communities.

Despite this, we remain committed to ensuring that the perspectives of seldom heard and hard to reach groups, including people from BME communities, are strongly reflected in the social security charter. To that end, we are working with stakeholders to run targeted focus groups in September to seek detailed feedback on the work completed to date. We will then invite representatives from each of the groups who participate in these sessions to join the core group.

The analysis of this survey will be published later in 2018. At this point, the findings will be shared with the Disability and Carer Benefits Expert Advisory Group via email. The group will be given the opportunity to discuss the findings and next steps with researchers from the Experience Panels team at their next meeting after publication, which is 1 November 2018.

On the 31 August there were 150 people who transferred from the Social Security Agency Implementation Division within Social Security Directorate in the Scottish Government to Social Security Scotland. The following table provides a breakdown on protected characteristics.

As at 7 September 2018,163 staff were employed in Social Security Scotland.

The breakdown of protected characteristics are as follows:

Not all of the data requested is available. We hold a record of agreed interview dates and agreed start dates but we have no way to confirm whether a candidate actually attended the interview or ended up taking up the post.

Table A: Breakdown of diversity characteristics for candidates who applied for a vacancy in Social Security Scotland.

The first meeting of Social Security Scotland’s Audit and Assurance Committee will fall in line with the audit cycle and will take place before the end of this year.