Recommendation 59

A solution offered in the evidence for providing this service to claimants in Scotland was for there to be a “no wrong door policy” explained by Kirsty McKechnie of the Child Poverty Action Group to us as if a claimant approaches ‘one agency and tell[s] them something, that information is then passed on, or if they apply for a benefit to the wrong agency, that is protected as a date of claim.’129 She took this further by suggesting there should be an improvement of communications and knowledge sharing across the social security system in Scotland with agencies being able to ‘deliver proper information to claimants, particularly about how they [benefit agencies] all interact with each other’.130 Professor McKendrick, Glasgow Caledonian University, also highlighted to us that claimants should be able to access a ‘seamless totality of advice for social security and they don’t get bits from here and bits from there’.131 Neil Cowan of the Poverty Alliance echoed this concern and told us ‘What we do not want is people having to go to multiple different agencies to access multiple pieces of advice about different systems.’132