Minimum Income Guarantee: report - easy read version
The easy read version of the independent Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group’s final report. The easy read provides a summary of the potential steps towards a Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland.
The Expert Group's roadmap
The report is a roadmap to delivering a Minimum Income Guarantee. This shows us what needs to happen and when.
The first steps in the roadmap should happen between 2026 and 2031.
These are possible for Scottish Government to do now but might need support from the UK Government.
The aim of the first steps is to make the current safety net stronger. This means improving the current benefits system, including Universal Credit.
Universal Credit is a benefit paid by the UK Government through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Services should also be easier to access, better quality and people should be encouraged to use them. Services include things like childcare, transport, energy and social care.
Work needs to be fair which means that it pays enough for people to live well and that people are treated well by their employers.
The Scottish Government will need to make sure that each of the first steps are fair and help the people that need it most.
The first steps will cost Scottish Government around £671 million per year. These costs would be less if the UK Government make changes that are suggested in this roadmap.
The next steps in the roadmap will take place between 2031 to 2036.
The Scottish Government does not have the powers to make all the changes to the law that it might need to deliver a Minimum Income Guarantee.
This means that the UK Government might need to give the Scottish Government more powers to change the law or work with them to make changes across the whole of the UK.
The Scottish Government could look at how and when they can start delivering a Minimum Income Guarantee.
They should also look at how they can provide more support for the people that need it most, like disabled people, unpaid carers and people living in rural areas.
Support to find work and build skills should be improved. This also means better planning to understand what skills and jobs will be needed for our country.
There should be more services that help people to work, this includes transport and childcare.
The final steps to the roadmap will happen from 2036 and after.
By 2036, there will be a much stronger safety net and our country will be fairer.
This safety net will include good work, more public services, cheaper costs and benefits that are set at a level that allows people to live well.
Contact
Email: MIGsecretariat@gov.scot