Recommendation 69

HM Government · verbatim extract Deferred

DWP and the Social Security Scotland have recently established a regular Operational Reference Group to look at ways of continuously improving the benefits experience of DWP and Social Security Scotland’s shared customers. The Group will review service delivery issues arising from people looking to access DWP/ Social Security Scotland benefits and consider any improvements for future benefit delivery. The Scottish Government already maintains a directory of public services, including how to access all available reserved and devolved benefits and grants, this can be found at www.mygov.scot and is maintained to ensure accuracy. In addition to this, the Scottish Government works to ensure that Social Security Scotland provides stakeholders who produce guidance, and organisations which manage benefit calculators, with information in a timely fashion which meets their editorial deadlines, so that existing external resources are as up to date as possible. As part of our scoping work for signposting and referrals we are also looking at existing resources and how services interact both locally and nationally – with the aim of complimenting and not duplicating what already exists. We have invested more than £3 million over two years to embed welfare rights advisors in 150 GP surgeries in Scotland’s most deprived areas, and have committed £1.5 million to trialling similar embedded approaches to advice in education settings. In doing so, we increase the routes through which people can access advice, using an approach which has been proven to reach those who have not engaged with traditional advice services. This is in addition to our existing commitment to invest morethan £12 million in welfare and debt advice services in 2021–22. In terms of advocacy, we are nearing the completion of a large-scale procurement process to establish a comprehensive free advocacy service for all clients of Social Security Scotland who require assistance to communicate as a result of having a disability. This has been supported by a stakeholder working group comprising advocacy providers and membership organisations, whose input will continue to be central to delivery of the service and alignment with the sector. Currently, we are running roadshows to provide information to organisations about the Child Disability Payment. The feedback so far has been overwhelming positive.We will continue to provide updates and information to organisations with regular cascades, as well as ensuring internal colleagues are aware of this information, ensuring consistent messaging until we have a longer term solution inplace. We will also shortly introduce in the Child Disability Payment areas ahead of nationwide rollout , our new Local Delivery service which will be able to answer queries about Scottish benefits, help to complete paper or online applications, and be available online, on the phone and alsoface-to-face. The Scottish Government also provides the majority of funding for the Child Poverty Action Group’s (CPAG) second-tier welfare rights advice service and training. In 2020–21, CPAG provided advice to staff in 445 different agencies. In 2021–22 we have granted CPAG up to £675,000 to continue the service’s operation, and in March 2021 we published analysis which outlined its value to the wider advice and advocacy sector in Scotland.2 We also note there is an existing resource - Welfare Benefits & TaxCredits Handbook, 2021/22 | CPAG – which is widely used.