Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2024
As other members have suggested, much of the bill is uncontentious and makes a lot of sense to all of us. For example, part 7 deals with compensation payments where there is an insurance receipt. Part of those should rightly be recovered by Social Security Scotland, just as happens with the DWP. That seems fine.
On the Scottish child payment, the committee is currently carrying out a review, and witnesses have been very positive about the impact that that payment has made. However, there seems to be a desire to break the link to UK benefits so that entitlement to the Scottish child payment could be more closely linked to need. The bill will make it possible for that to happen in the future.
From a financial perspective, there is expected to be a cost of some £7 million to £17 million in the first few years, but there are then expected to be savings because of compensation recovery.
I had slightly more concerns about part 6 of the bill, on audit—the convener of the committee referred to that. The proposed changes are coming about because Audit Scotland challenged Social Security Scotland to measure better the levels of error and fraud. That, in turn, would help to ensure that official statistics are reliable. That is certainly a fair expectation. However, we start to have problems when we jump from the big picture to individual cases. It all comes across as a bit harsh in comparison with the overall direction of Social Security Scotland, which emphasises dignity, fairness and respect.
In my thinking, audit or even estimating an overall figure of error or fraud at the national level should be all about the big-picture stuff and assessing how well Social Security Scotland has been doing. There might be a comparison with the audit of a company, in which the auditors might write to banks or other third parties to confirm balances at the year end. Audit is largely an administrative process that focuses on the organisation, and it would not be expected to negatively impact on clients or customers.
To go from that to removing social security payments from clients who do not respond seems very harsh. Those people would already have gone through the system in order to receive adult disability payment, the Scottish child payment or whatever. There would be no evidence that they had done something wrong or even that they had received the wrong payment by mistake, yet based purely on their refusal or inability to answer yet more questions—including ones that they have already answered—they could have their benefits stopped. Something feels wrong about that.
The next question is how we can improve that part of the bill. I accept that some sanctions need to be available if error or fraud is found to have occurred. I also accept that some safeguards are already in place—for example, with a right to advocacy. I also note the Government’s response to our stage 1 report. Some of that is reassuring—for example, individuals with particular vulnerabilities will never be asked to participate in the audit process. I also note the comparison with an inventory system in a retail environment that is aimed at verifying stock levels and not at catching shoplifters. That is a very good point. It is exactly the point that has caused me concern. Therefore, I think that we are in more agreement about the aims of all this; it is a question of how we do it.
It seems to me that, if there are weaknesses in Social Security Scotland’s system of awarding payments in the first place, the answer is to improve that awarding system rather than to go back and ask the same people more questions. On the other hand, if someone’s circumstances have changed and they have not told Social Security Scotland about that, that is definitely more difficult to pick up. I am not sure whether that is really part of the audit process, but I accept that it is important and that we need to have something in the system to check on such cases.
Having said all of that, I am in full agreement that we should agree to the general principles of the bill, as the committee’s report says, and we should vote for it at stage 1. The developing Scottish social security system is an exciting part of the landscape of Scotland, and I hope that the fact that the budget in that area increased by some £1 billion for 2024-25 shows that the whole Parliament supports it.