5.The aim of the Act is to improve the Scottish system of social security established under the 2018 Act. The Act includes a number of provisions intended to improve the experience of people using the services provided by Social Security Scotland (the agency which delivers social security assistance on behalf of the Scottish Ministers) and a number of provisions intended to make the system more efficient. The Act also seeks to implement the findings of an independent review into the remit and operation of the Scottish Commission on Social Security, and to revoke emergency provision inserted into the 2018 Act in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Some provisions of the Act amend or repeal sections of the 2018 Act, and others create new provisions in that Act.
6.The Act is drafted in ten Parts:
Part 1 contains regulation-making powers for the Scottish Ministers to create two new forms of social security assistance: childhood assistance, for individuals with children; and care experience assistance, for individuals with experience of having been in the care system.
Part 2 repeals section 52B of the 2018 Act, which contains emergency coronavirus provision introduced in 2020 during the pandemic; and provides a power to allow late applications for assistance for each form of assistance under the 2018 Act.
Part 3 contains provisions which set out timescales for re-determination or appeal requests; provisions which introduce the right to withdraw a re-determination request; provisions which clarify the duties on Scottish Ministers where they have not completed a re-determination within the statutory deadline; provisions introducing a power for Scottish Ministers to make a new determination of entitlement during an appeal, with the effect of ending that appeal; provisions to set out the circumstances which may be taken into account by the First-tier Tribunal in making a determination on appeal; and provisions which set out the powers of the Tribunal in a “process appeal” under section 61 of the 2018 Act, along with the consequences of the Tribunal’s decision.
Part 4 contains provisions which modify the 2018 Act provisions on liability for assistance given in error and introduce a right to a review, followed by a right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland, against a finding of liability for assistance given in error. Provision is also made to allow assistance given in error under regulations made under section 79 to be recovered by way of deduction from other assistance given to that individual.
Part 5 contains provisions which would allow Scottish Ministers to treat a person appointed by the UK Department for Work and Pensions for a limited time as though they are an appointee under the 2018 Act; provision is also made to make appointees liable to the person they act for where they act in breach of their duties.
Part 6 extends the duty on the Scottish Ministers to take into account the effect of inflation and annually uprate social security assistance, so that it applies to all payments delivered under the 2018 Act.
Part 7 confers powers on Scottish Ministers allowing them to audit the monetary value of error and fraud in the Scottish social security system.
Part 8 contains the provisions and powers which will allow the Scottish Ministers to make recoveries of devolved social security assistance from awards of compensation, where they have both been awarded in relation to the same accident, injury or disease.
Part 9 contains provisions amending the remit and operation of the Scottish Commission on Social Security.
Part 10 contains the final and general provisions for the Act.