Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 136
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 that not enough claimants know about the Choices and that this has meant that their uptake is lower than what it could be. Neil Cowan from The Poverty Alliance mentioned in evidence that their research showed that claimants ‘did not know that they could take up their choices, they were not aware of it, so there is obviously some work to do around increasing awareness of the flexibilities.’331 This was echoed by Marion Davis of One Parent Families Scotland who said that the Scottish Choices were hindered by ‘a lack of awareness and understanding around [Scottish Choices]’332 by claimants. Our own survey, (whilst not being representative as the respondents were self-selecting), also highlighted this issue. 63 of the respondents said they claimed Universal Credit and despite Scottish Choices being an option for all of these people only nine respondents said they knew what they were.333
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".