Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 32
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Welfare policy in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We were told by the UK and Scottish governments that these agency agreements are funded by the Scottish Government who reimburse the DWP for delivering the benefits 72 Scottish Government (WPS0013) 73 Scottish Government (WPS0013) 74 Scottish Government (WPS0013) 75 Scottish Government (WPS0013) 76 Department for Work and Pensions (WPS0021) 77 Q151 78 Q151 79 Q184 20 Welfare policy in Scotland that agency agreements have been set up for.80 Catherine Reeves from the Social Security Programme Management Office, Scottish Government, highlighted that this system was ‘good value for money’81 and ‘fair to the taxpayer’82 whilst it is in operation.
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), 23 June 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 November 2021 (deadline 23 August 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The UK Government "notes the Committee's recommendations" and responds to each in turn, accepting little of the report's welfare-policy proposals and referring several to the Scottish Government.
- On the £20 uplift and legacy benefits, it states "There was never any plan to extend the uplift to legacy benefits."
- On work allowances, it states it "has no plans to extend the work allowance to single adults".
- On Help to Claim funding, it "considers the existing resource to be sufficient", and says DWP agreed to fund Citizens Advice Scotland for another year, "up to 31 March 2022".
- On data sharing and Recommendations 2, 7 and 8, it says each data request "must be examined" by DWP as Data Controller, and treats several recommendations as "for the Scottish Government".