Minimum Income Guarantee: report - executive summary

Annex 1: Recommendations

Step 1: Theory to action

RECOMMENDATION 1: The Scottish Government should agree to progressing towards a Minimum Income Guarantee as a matter of urgency in 2026, embedding the principle across all policies, strategies and portfolios. They should set a clear target for reducing the number of people living beneath the Minimum Income Guarantee level and report on progress against this and towards implementation of a MIG through an annual statement

Step 2: Guaranteed safety net

RECOMMENDATION 2: As an urgent priority we must set a deadline for action to move closer to a guaranteed safety net that people can rely on. This means the Scottish Government must progress with urgency towards its existing commitment of scrapping the impact of the two-child limit for the Universal Credit Child Element in 2026, children in larger families must no longer be punished or put at greater risk of poverty. By the end of 2026, the Scottish Government must act if the UK Government fails to by ending:

• The unjust five-week wait for the first Universal Credit payment, which leaves a gaping hole in the safety net and risks destitution for those that need support.
• The unfair Parenting Penalty within Universal Credit, which limits support for childcare costs for low-income families to 85% of childcare costs up to a cap, creating barriers to employment and other opportunities. Instead, 100% of costs up to a cap should be covered.

RECOMMENDATION 3: The Scottish Government should prioritise increasing the Scottish Child Payment to reach £55 p/week (in 2024/25 prices) as soon as possible in the next parliamentary term and by the end of 2030 at the latest.

RECOMMENDATION 4: The UK Government should implement an Essentials Guarantee as a matter of urgency, no later than the end of 2026, no household should face a choice between heating and eating.

RECOMMENDATION 5: By 2027, The UK Government and Scottish Government should work together to facilitate the necessary flexibilities to pilot and implement the removal of conditions and sanctions in Scotland.

RECOMMENDATION 6 By 2027, the Scottish Government should stop unaffordable third-party deductions by public bodies (i.e. the money taken from benefits to pay down debts) as a matter of urgency, ensuring that no public body in Scotland (such as local authorities) applies for a third-party deduction without first having undertaken a proper affordability check.

Step 3: A system centred on equality

RECOMMENDATION 7: The Scottish Government should undertake an intersectional, gendered modelling and analysis of the impact of a Minimum Income Guarantee by 2026. This should consider the implications of eligibility for a Minimum Income Guarantee payment being assessed by household and individual income. The longer-term impacts of a Minimum Income Guarantee on women’s labour market participation must be considered. This will be critical to ensure the Minimum Income Guarantee can be designed in a way that is gender competent, addresses existing gendered, intersectional biases within the current social security system, and prevents gender-based violence and abuse.

RECOMMENDATION 8: A Minimum Income Standard for disabled people should be developed by 2027 and used to aid a review of the adequacy of disability benefits. This should ensure that additional costs faced by disabled people are adequately reflected in the level of payment. Similarly, the UK Government should also review adequacy of related benefits still being paid via DWP to ensure that disability benefits are adequately funded in Scotland.

RECOMMENDATION 9: By 2027, the Scottish Government should undertake further work to qualify both the additional costs faced by unpaid carers and loss of income (including long term implications) and understand what amendments are needed to the unpaid carer payments as a result.

RECOMMENDATION 10: The Scottish Government should align current benefit eligibility (for example, free school meals eligibility with the Scottish Child Payment, and better alignment of eligibility for the five family payments overall) and increase automation to support and increase accessibility by 2029.

RECOMMENDATION 11: Building on current approaches to benefit take up, the Scottish Government should increase investment in schemes at the local and national levels that will reach people and families currently not taking up the support they are entitled to by 2031. This should pave the way for Social Security Scotland to move towards an approach, utilising technology and data where helpful, that aims for as close to full take up of entitlements as possible.

RECOMMENDATION 12: By 2027 the Scottish Government should have invested in the collection of intersectional data in relevant areas: poverty, services and employment that is readily available and competently used in policy design both within government and working groups advising the government.

Step 4: Maximising the fair work agenda

RECOMMENDATION 13: The UK Government and Scottish Government should work together with employers to maximise the potential for the UK’s ‘new deal for working people’ agenda and for Scotland’s Fair Work agenda to drive reduced levels of poverty, inequality and financial insecurity in Scotland. This includes bringing an end to age discrimination and recognising the value of apprenticeships by working towards all workers receiving at least the real Living Wage and Living Hours by 2030.

RECOMMENDATION 14: The Scottish Government should expand its requirements in public procurement to ensure that all contractors must meet a wider range of fair work first actions (including living hours, being carer positive and action on accessible and flexible work). This should include enforcement and monitoring of these pledges by contractors by 2028.

RECOMMENDATION 15: The Scottish Government should review how local tax powers can be used in new ways to encourage progress on fair work by the end of 2026. This should consider phasing out the Small Business Bonus Scheme to provide new financial incentives to implement fair work practices and disincentives for not doing so.

RECOMMENDATION 16: The Scottish Government should engage with employers and unions to review the potential for sectoral bargaining mechanisms and Fair Pay Agreements across a range of sectors, including social care, childcare and hospitality, in which low pay and insecure work are endemic. These should become key to conditionality within public procurements, public funding and tax policy within Scotland by the end of 2028.

Step 5: Fair, affordable and accessible services

RECOMMENDATION 17: By 2031, the Scottish Government should use all of its powers to move more of the population towards a Minimum Income Guarantee, including reducing the costs, and increasing the range, accessibility and quality of public services such that household costs are reduced for those on low incomes, and increasing the progressivity of taxes to support fairer distributions of income.

RECOMMENDATION 18: By 2031, action should focus on improving the availability, access, quality and take up of existing services with an effort to minimise barriers to support and inequalities. The Scottish Government should:

• Take urgent action to ensure that everyone has access to a safe, secure and sustainable home with focus on those most marginalised and experiencing intersecting barriers.
• Promote existing broadband, phone social tariffs, and provide sufficient support to people who are digitally excluded.
• Review the affordability of childcare and monitor how this interacts with people’s ability to reach a Minimum Income Guarantee. Improve implementation of current Early Learning Childcare offer by ensuring this is available, accessible, and flexible for all and suitable for children with additional support needs. This should also look at the infrastructure and working conditions of childcare employees that need to be met prior to any expansion of funded hours, paying attention to the availability of funded hours beyond term time, over the medium-term.
• Establish a core level of service provision for social care that enables disabled people to live independently and achieve ordinary things that others take for granted such as participation, learning, education and working if this is an option for them. Similarly, adequate social care will enable unpaid carers to access opportunities alongside their caring responsibilities, where they wish and if able to do so, including by supporting access to employment, community participation and education.
• Work with transport providers and Local Authorities to agree an approach to improving safe and equitable access to public transport which meet the needs of communities across Scotland.

RECOMMENDATION 19: The Scottish Government should work with the UK Government to develop and deliver a new automated national social tariff for energy in Scotland, prioritising the reduction of energy costs for low-income households in the first instance and those who face higher costs, including rural and island communities and disabled people. This would see an automated system that proactively targets support to low-income households to ensure no one goes without essential services by 2031.

Step 6: Piloting a Minimum Income Guarantee

RECOMMENDATION 20: The Scottish Government should establish a multi-year pilot of a Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland by 2029.

Step 7: Financing the first steps of a Minimum Income Guarantee

RECOMMENDATION 21: The Scottish Government should make investment to deliver the initial steps of a Minimum Income Guarantee a protected spending area in the Scottish budget. If further revenue is required for spending in unprotected areas progressive Council Tax reforms and changes to Income Tax thresholds should be considered.

Step 8: Ensuring success through cooperation

RECOMMENDATION 22: By 2027, the UK and Scottish Government should work together to establish a new Cooperation Commission, to consider how cooperation, flexibilities and/or further powers could deliver against clear agreed shared outcomes in Scotland. This would include understanding and agreeing what is necessary to deliver a Minimum Income Guarantee. Reporting in time for the next UK Parliament elections (which must be called by 2029) the Commission would outline a new framework for cooperation between the UK and Scottish governments to deliver for Scotland to be implemented from 2031 at the latest.^[9]

RECOMMENDATION 23: A Minimum Income Guarantee Commission should be established by 2031 to guide implementation of a Minimum Income Guarantee through to 2036 and beyond. The Commission should be based on the design of the Low Pay Commission, but should include diverse, intersectional lived experience, alongside other forms of expertise. In establishing the Minimum Income Guarantee Commission consideration should be given to whether its responsibilities could be handed to an existing body.

Step 9: Interim time-limited Minimum Income Guarantee

RECOMMENDATION 24: By 2036 the Scottish Government should introduce an initial interim time-limited Minimum Income Guarantee payment set at the equivalent of the relative poverty line, subject to the advice of the Minimum Income Guarantee Commission. This would offer a temporary boost in support for some. Some groups would not be subject to the time-limit e.g. disabled people and unpaid carers.

Step 10: Ensuring everyone has a level of income that promotes dignity

RECOMMENDATION 25: The Scottish Government should implement a means tested Minimum Income Guarantee premium for unpaid carers, disabled people and those in rural and island communities. Prior to that it must quantify the reduced earnings potential experienced by many disabled people and unpaid carers by 2031. It must also update the work already undertaken to understand the costs faced by disabled people and those in rural and island communities, and the impact this has on their overall income.

Step 11: Futureproofing skills and employment

RECOMMENDATION 26: The Scottish Government should take strategic action by 2032 to futureproof the workforce with clear aims around supporting a just transition, shaping technological change, and responding to an ageing population. This should look across employability, education and skills and be underpinned by the principles of a Minimum Income Guarantee.

Step 12: Reducing household costs and unlocking opportunities

RECOMMENDATION 27: We support calls for the Scottish Government to expand the current childcare offer of 1140 hours to 1900 hours (50 hours per week in term time or 36 per week year-round) for 3 and 4 year olds and introduce a new offer that provides 1,300 hours per year (24 hours per week across the year) for 1 and 2 year olds by 2032 at the latest. This could prioritise low-income households in the first instance and/or could be increased incrementally alongside wider reform to work and social security as part of the Roadmap towards a Minimum Income Guarantee.

RECOMMENDATION 28: By 2036, the Scottish Government should expand the concessionary travel to include low-income households, encompassing all households below the Minimum Income Guarantee level.

Step 13: Financing the next steps of the Minimum Income Guarantee

RECOMMENDATION 29: With further powers or flexibilities on tax, the Scottish Government should consider tax reform to fund a Minimum Income Guarantee. In doing so it should consider how existing powers can be used to their maximum, and how further powers could allow lessons to be learned from how other countries which have funded greater investment in social security as preventative spending.

Step 14: Delivering a full Minimum Income Guarantee

RECOMMENDATION 30: Beyond 2036, a Minimum Income Guarantee should be set at a level that ensures everyone can live with dignity. This should balance action across work, services and social security and consider economic and social needs. This included expansion of the Minimum Income Guarantee payment, regulation of the costs of essentials, more needs met through Universal Basic Services, and the delivery of a social partnership economy.