Pension Age Winter Heating Payment: Fairer Scotland Duty assessment

Monitoring and Evaluation

The Scottish Government has established the Scottish Commission on Social Security (SCoSS), an independent expert body that will scrutinise the Scottish social security system (including benefit regulations) and hold Scottish Ministers to account. As part of their function, they have examined the regulations required for the administration of PAWHP and have produced reports setting out their observations and recommendations in relation to the proposals. These reports have been submitted to Scottish Ministers, the Scottish Parliament and made available to the wider public as required by the duty conferred on Scottish Ministers by section 97 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018.

The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 required the Scottish Government to create a Charter, which sets out how the Scottish Government will uphold the Principles in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, how we will make sure that we are taking a human rights based approach to social security and how we will demonstrate dignity, fairness and respect in all our actions. The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 places a duty on Scottish Ministers to publish an annual report on the performance of the Scottish social security system during the previous financial year. The report is to describe what the Scottish Ministers have done in that year to meet the expectations on them set out in the Charter.

Monitoring the impact of the PAWHP will be a continuous process and where any unintended consequences are identified, we will consider what steps can be made to minimise any negative impact.

We will collate management information to monitor the characteristics of recipients and will undertake qualitative research to evaluate whether PAWHP is meeting its policy intentions. This will inform any future consideration of variations to policy or delivery arrangements.