Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 89
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)
On top of having a device and a good internet connection a claimant is also expected to have the necessary IT skills to access the Universal Credit system. A digital-literacy barrier was highlighted in the evidence we heard. Neil Cowan of The Poverty Alliance noted that for people with IT or literacy issues it becomes ‘almost impossible to make applications and to manage their claims online.’220 Nina Ballantyne from Citizens Advice Scotland went further in suggesting that the system was too complicated even for people who were experienced in using digital systems. They said that even the ‘digitally savvy are still having trouble making and maintaining a claim just because the system is so complex and unfamiliar, particularly for new people claiming Universal Credit.’221
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".