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Introduction of parity in the burial and cremation costs is outwith the remit of social security. The Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 will require burial and cremation authorities that are local authorities to publish their costs, and to keep those fees under review. The Act does not require local authorities to set particular fees for these services. It is the responsibility of each local authority to manage its own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government will publish a broad consultation on social security in Scotland this year, ahead of its commitment to publish a social security bill within the first parliamentary year. This will be notified to parliament through usual channels.

We expect to publish the funeral costs plan by spring 2017, following development in collaboration with stakeholders, through round table discussions and a national conference on funeral poverty due to take place in autumn 2016. It will include views gathered during the broad consultation on social security in Scotland which will take place in 2016.

Stakeholder feedback and our own assessment suggests that the need is not being met. Limited department of work and pensions data on who is getting the funeral payment and the unpredictable nature of life events makes it difficult to identify whether this is because of the eligibility criteria or poor take up. We will be consulting on eligibility criteria as part of a broad consultation on social security in Scotland which will take place in 2016.

In setting out implementation timetable we need to take legal, financial and delivery issues sensibly into account and consequently it is too early at this stage to confirm exact timescales. But we will increase carers allowance to the same level as jobseeker’s allowance as soon as practically possible.

The Scottish Government has made an assessment of ‘Support for the Bereaved’, published by the Work and Pensions Committee of the UK Parliament and shares its concerns about the operation of the Department of Work and Pensions DWP funeral payment. We will be consulting on proposals to improve the funeral payment as part of a broad consultation on social security in Scotland, which will take place in 2016.

The membership of the funeral poverty and funeral payment reference group is:

Association of British Credit Unions Ltd

Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland

Church of Scotland

Citizens Advice Scotland

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities

Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland

Funeral Planning Authority

Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management

Marie Curie

Money Advice Scotland

Muslim Council of Scotland

National Association of Funeral Directors

NHS Education Scotland

NHS Lothian Bereavement Services

Quaker Social Action

Roman Catholic Church

Royal London Group

Scottish Local Government Partnership

Scottish Older Peoples Assembly

Scottish Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors

Scottish Working Group on Funeral Poverty

There have been two meetings of the group to date which took place on 14 March 2016 and 27 April 2016. No further dates have been identified. The group is expected to meet shortly in connection with the planned round table events and conference on funeral poverty.

Notes of the meetings will be published on the Scottish Government website in due course.

Providing support for people will be a vital part of the future delivery of social security in Scotland and independent advocacy has a critical role in this. Our forthcoming consultation will ask for views about advocacy as well as wider advice and support. We are working with people who receive social security and the organisations that support them to design a system that is responsive, person-centred and treats people with dignity and respect.

HMRC Cumbernauld is a Whitehall department and as such this is a reserved matter.

However, when HMRC announced the next stage of their building our future transformation programme in November 2015, the First Minister personally spoke to the second permanent secretary at HMRC to relay her grave concerns over these job losses.

This is a worrying situation for staff and we are fully committed to working with all interested parties at local, national and UK level, including the trades unions, to mitigate the impact of HMRC office closures in Scotland.