Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 91
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)
In 2018 the DWP responded to previous concerns about access and support for Universal Credit applications by funding the ‘Help to Claim’ service. This is administered in Scotland on DWP’s behalf by Citizens Advice Scotland. The Minister for Welfare 218 Q75 219 Q120 220 Q49 221 Q75 222 Q105 223 Q122 224 Q105 225 Southside Housing Association (WPS0023) 226 Q164 Welfare policy in Scotland 37 Delivery confirmed that the system across the UK was funded ‘to the tune of £39 million’227 and has helped 250,000 people access Universal Credit in the past year.228 However, in written evidence Citizens Advice Scotland said that a drawback with the Help to Claim service is that it ‘cannot support a person with claim maintenance’229 (including the actions above in the bulleted list) and only helps people with making an initial application for a claim.
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".