Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 61
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 heard how a wide range of organisations supported people to understand their eligibilities and access benefits and poverty relief. Local Authorities have invested funds and developed services to help people experiencing poverty navigate the various benefits 128 Q102 129 Q102 130 Q102 131 Q8 132 Q44 133 Citizens Advice Scotland (WPS0014) 134 Q102 135 Q102 136 Q44 28 Welfare policy in Scotland and apply to Universal Credit; for example, Councillor Bell from Glasgow City Council told us of a £2million investment in support for Universal Credit applications.137 Polly Jones from The Trussell Trust food bank network stated that through their provision of emergency food parcels, they have developed collaborations that enable specialist advice providers to visit the foodbank to provide support, and volunteers sign-post to funds or services, stating ‘we have relationships with nearly 30,000 referral agencies across the UK. It is a very complex picture.’138 They also told us that a research project in East Scotland with advice providers found that ‘many of those very experienced advice providers themselves could not keep up with the changes in advice provision and support across their own localities.’139
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".