Seòmar agus comataidhean

Given the speed at which the Scottish Child Payment is being rolled out, policy and delivery development to date has primarily focussed on the early payments for children aged under 6 which will begin before Christmas 2020.

Across social security, we are committed to reducing the barriers to claiming benefits and promoting take up, making the process as simple and straightforward as possible, and ensuring people are treated with dignity and respect. Ahead of the payment being fully rolled out by the end of 2022, we will continue to undertake detailed stakeholder engagement and user research, alongside operational and technical requirements, to inform future application and payment processes.

The latest policy position paper, published on gov.scot, provides further detail on this: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-child-payment-updated-position-paper/ .

The budgets for the Scottish Government, including Social Security Directorate, are set out in the Scottish Budget each year, and links are provided below to each year’s Budget. These include budget lines for Social Security, which include the cost for directly employed staff and contingent workers.

2016-17: https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20170702005839/
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/9056/0

2017-18:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-budget-draft-budget-2017-18/

2018-19:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-draft-budget-2018-19/

2019-20:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2019-20/

Regarding a comparison of actual spend to budget, we report this annually in the “final outturn report for the Scottish budget”, and links are provided below to each year’s report:

2016-17 (provisional):
https://www.gov.scot/news/provisional-budget-outturn/

2017-18:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/final-outturn-report-scottish-budget-year-
ended-31-march-2018/

2018-19:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/final-outturn-report-scottish-budget-year-
ended-31-march-2019/

2019-20: to be published

For further information on the specific costs for contingent workers, we publish information on our procurement awards here, including contingent workers:

https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/search_mainpage.aspx .

Information on tax-domicile and residency status of interim and contingent workers provided through third parties would be more appropriately collected by the supplier. We have no information on this.

For those hired directly we collect the information required on domicile and residency to ensure correct tax and NI deductions and payments.

We do not hold a central record of the number of IR35 assessments undertaken. Assessments are conducted on a case by case basis by individual business areas.

Contingent workers are not employed directly by Scottish Government and do not have records on an SG payroll. Information on contingent workers employed by agencies and engaged in Scottish Government Core is published in our Official Statistics publication which can be found here. https://www.gov.scot/publications/workforce-information/ 

Workers in scope for IR35 are an exception to the above as regards payroll. They are counted as contingent workers and are not employed directly by SG. They have a contract for provision of services not a contract of employment but do have a payroll record. Payroll is used to deduct the necessary PAYE tax and National Insurance contributions from the payment for services provided. It does not infer any employment relationship.

Since 2017, 4 workers hired directly have been found to be in scope and we are making appropriate tax and NI deductions.

All suppliers contracted to provide interim and contingent labour are required to provide monthly reports detailing the workers assigned and the associated rates charged.

Exhibit 2 correctly states that eligible families with children under 16 will receive their payments by the end of 2022, which reflects the timeline announced by the First Minister for the Scottish Government in its Programme for Government 2019-2020. The document referred to is not produced by Scottish Government or Social Security Scotland and any questions regarding its editing should be put to Audit Scotland.

The Agency Agreement sets out the principles for audit and refers to the jointly agreed document; Scottish Devolution: A Framework for Audit and Accountability which was published on 8 March 2019. Social Security Scotland worked closely with Audit Scotland during the course of their audit however is unable to comment on the work undertaken by them.

This work was carried out jointly by the Scottish Government and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). It is part of the DWP’s standard practice when making changes or adjustments to the Universal Credit system to employ user research findings to design and test new processes. Participants are told that the research is confidential and will not be published.

The Social Security Directorate, along with the wider Scottish Government, publishes contract awards for contingent works at www.publiccontractscotland.gov.uk , including award value, duration and numbers of workers.

We are unable to provide more detailed information on full-time equivalent and day-rate salaries due to commercial sensitivities and for reasons of protecting personal information.