Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 47
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
A related issue raised by the DWP was whether the data they collect from clients involves a consent process that limits their ability to transfer to other agencies, such as the Scottish Government. In our evidence session with the DWP, officials raised concerns that when taking a claim for Universal Credit, currently there was no indication to claimants that they may ‘share [claimants] information with the Scottish Government’.119 The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations noted in their written evidence that they felt the DWP should take a ‘more rational approach to data sharing and implicit consent.’120 The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations also pointed out the comments of the Information Commissioner’s Office from April 2019 when it gave the opinion that the ‘DWP appears to be taking an unduly restrictive view of the definition of consent under data protection’.121
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".