Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 127
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 did not ask the DWP to comment on its sanctions policy as part of this inquiry. However, we are aware that it has commented on this matter recently, in response to the House of Lords Economics Affairs Committee’s inquiry into The Economics of Universal Credit. In their response to that Committee’s report, the DWP said: ‘Sanctions can be a useful way to encourage claimants to comply with reasonable and achievable requirements, developed and agreed between the Work Coach and the claimant to prepare for and/or move into work.’323 It goes on to say that the Department has committed to look at further processes such as sending written warnings before actioning sanctions on claimants as well as highlighting its own analysis on conditionality, that highlighted that: ‘72% of claimants agreed that the potential for sanctions meant they were more likely to conduct work search.’324
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".