Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 44
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)
The DWP explained their reading of the situation in regards to the Scottish Government rolling out the Scottish Child Payment to children older than six years old. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work noted that the data necessary for this roll out was proving difficult to supply because the DWP ‘don’t have it.’111 The DWP officials went on to explain that for the data necessary for the Scottish Child Payment for children under the age of six, the DWP transferred data that was used by the UK Government to administer maternity grants to the Scottish Government so they could deliver their Best Start Grant benefit. The Scottish Government then used the same data to set up the Scottish Child Payment for children aged under six years old.112
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".