Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 40
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)
In their written evidence to the Committee the DWP talk of examples of the work that has already been done with regards to data transfer to help to support the devolution of welfare to the Scottish Government. • DWP supplies data scans on Carer’s Allowance recipients to enable the Scottish Government to pay its Carer’s Allowance Supplement105—an extra payment for people in Scotland who get Carer’s Allowance on a particular date which is paid by the Scottish Government to recipients without requiring an additional application; • DWP has provided Social Security Scotland with access to its Customer Information System to enable the Scottish Government to identify and verify information and shared data to support identification of eligible customers; • Social Security Scotland also currently uses DWP’s Customer Payment System, Bank Liaison Service, Financial Services Support & Reconciliation Services and Shared Services Connected Limited for accounting and reconciliation business services.106
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".