Minimum Income Guarantee report: SG response

Response to Expert Group recommendations

This section sets out our response to the Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group’s near-term recommendations. It sets out what we are currently doing as a government to make progress towards our shared vision for Scotland across four themes: strengthening the safety net; accessible, affordable and equitable services; embedding fair work across Scotland; and equalities, intersectionality and piloting.

1. Strengthening the safety net

The Expert Group made recommendations around improving ways of working and making changes to the current support available for people in Scotland to ‘build a guarantee’.

The below outlines the actions we are already taking and are committed to as a government to provide a strong safety net for the people of Scotland.

Strengthening current systems

As mentioned previously, we have already built a radically different social security system in Scotland to tackle poverty and inequality and to mitigate the worst impacts of UK Government cuts and policies. We are committed to continuously improving that system here in Scotland.

All our benefits are subject to rigorous evaluation to test whether they are working and having the impact expected, and we are continuing to learn. Our Five Family Payments^[14] evaluation published in August 2025 clearly demonstrates the significant positive impact which these payments are having on the day-to-day living costs experienced by some of Scotland’s most challenged households and the impact that this in turn is having on improving their overall health and wellbeing. Families report improved physical and emotional wellbeing, with better access to nutritious food and reduced financial stress, contributing to healthier lifestyles and access to the kind of social activities that other families would take for granted.

The payments are also helping families pay for essential items like food and clothing, which children in these households might otherwise go without. In addition, they are helping with essential one-off larger purchases like prams and furniture - reducing dependency on food banks and on borrowing money, either from loans companies or family members.

We are also committed to further improving Adult Disability Payment. We are currently considering the recommendations from the Independent Review of Adult Disability Payment^[15] and will publish our initial response to the report in January 2026. We will also consider the Audit Scotland report on Adult Disability Payment.^[16] That report states that the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland have made good progress in implementing and delivering Adult Disability Payment and sets out a series of recommendations. More detail around our actions taken so far to improve the lives of disabled people is included in the equalities, intersectionality and piloting section of this response.

While we continue to evaluate, test and look for improvements to our benefits, we are confident in the positive impact our approach is making. A report last year from the Office of the Chief Social Policy Adviser^[17] concluded that there was early evidence that benefits administered by Social Security Scotland support the achievement of a fairer Scotland through a number of outcomes, such as: reducing child poverty, household poverty, material deprivation and debt; and improving health and wellbeing. The report also points to social security benefits promoting equality. Women, disabled people and ethnic minorities experience higher rates of poverty. Disabled people also face increased additional living costs because of the impact of being disabled or having a health condition. Equality impact assessments indicate that women, disabled people and ethnic minorities are likely to benefit most from new Scottish benefits such as the Scottish Child Payment.

As a result, we have an opportunity to reflect on the successes of devolution and identify where lessons can be learned and improvements can be made now that Social Security Scotland is delivering the majority of the benefits that were devolved. This means being clear about the outcomes associated with our investment in our different benefits – both for individuals, but also for Scotland as a whole – and using the lessons learned over the course of delivering our devolved system to best calibrate it for the future and to deliver the Scotland we all want to see. This includes identifying the data and technologies required to enable a seamless journey across public services for people navigating different forms of support.

Families must be able to access the support they need, where and when they need it – with services designed to respond immediately, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, and wrapping the support around them. We made a commitment to increase funding flexibility to better enable partners to deliver whole family support in our 2025/26 Programme for Government.^[18] These measures are initially being rolled out to a core group of local authorities, with the intention of extending to other parts of Scotland quickly thereafter.

As we move beyond safe and secure transfer, Social Security Scotland will become further embedded in this broader landscape of public services as part of Public Service Reform. We are committed to working towards increased data sharing to enable people to take-up and receive the benefits and support they are entitled to at both local and national level, centralising systems, supporting financial sustainability of public services by ensuring low levels of fraud and error and, as a result, ultimately improve the overall client journey and experience of accessing public services.

Our next Benefit Take-Up Strategy is due to be published by October 2026. We continue to urge the UK Government to follow our example to develop a Benefit Take-Up Strategy for reserved benefits and to publish take-up rates for all reserved benefits, including Universal Credit. We also welcome the UK Work and Pensions Committee’s recommendation that the Department for Work and Pensions develop a take-up strategy for all entitlements, as set out in their recent report on Pensioner Poverty^[19], published in June 2025.

We are aware that current evidence shows that consistent signposting, implementation of referral pathways between services and automation of entitlements where this is viable remain key to improving take-up, including among seldom-heard groups. They are also central to delivery of our ambition to deliver efficient public services as set out in our Public Service Reform Strategy.^[20] We know, therefore, that data sharing is central to achieving progress and meeting the public’s expectation of what a modern public service and critical piece of national infrastructure should be able to do.

Like all other aspects of the devolved social security system, the recovery of overpayments is predicated on treating people with fairness, dignity, and respect at all times. In the devolved social security system no deductions are made to service third party debts. Any attempts to recover social security overpayments take into account the individual’s circumstances so far as they are known, with the key policy objective of ensuring no-one is placed into hardship as a result of recovery of overpayments. The UK Government should reconsider its policy of allowing other public bodies to apply for third-party deductions to be made from reserved benefit payments. It should also halt plans to allow direct deductions from bank accounts and suspension of driving licences.^[21]

However, with around 85% of social security spend in Scotland remaining reserved to the UK Government, it is important that the UK Government match our ambition and action in this space – including by abolishing harmful welfare policies, such as the two-child limit, and driving further progress toward an Essentials Guarantee to ensure that everyone has the money they need to live a dignified life and meet their basic needs.

Increasing access

A key principle of our approach to supporting access to social security is to ensure that people can receive free, accurate and informed advice about the entitlements they may be eligible for in the places that they already go. Since 2021, we have invested over £5.3 million into Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships, including more than £610,000 in 2025/26. Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships provide an integrated approach to advice, allowing participating GP practices to refer patients directly to an embedded welfare rights advisor in a trusted and non-stigmatising setting.

We are also investing £16.9 million (including the figure above for Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships) in 2025/26 in the provision of free income maximisation support, welfare and debt advice - an increase on funding in 2024/25. Our investment supports advice services which are delivered in a range of ways, including face-to-face, by telephone and on-line and is provided to a range of national advice providers including Citizens Advice Scotland and their network of Bureaux, StepChange Debt Charity, Advice Direct Scotland, One Parent Families Scotland. It also includes £1.73 million for our Advice in Accessible Settings Fund which seeks to increase the provision of advice within services that people already go to.

Social Security Scotland have a regular programme of activity to help support take-up rates of devolved benefits. This includes advertising, social media content, media relations and stakeholder engagement and the supply of information materials (leaflets, posters, etc) to locations such as schools, health centres, pharmacies, libraries and community groups. This activity seeks to raise awareness of the benefits available to eligible people, while also trying to mitigate wider barriers to applying, such as stigma.

Tackling stigma is key to supporting access to social security and in August 2025 we worked with Social Security Scotland to publish a Seldom-Heard Group Action Plan.^[22] This was in response to research we commissioned to look at the barriers experienced by marginalised communities who face intersecting disadvantages that make it more difficult to engage with the social security system, as well as on the impact of stigma on take-up. Activity set out in the Action Plan includes: development of a Social Security Scotland inclusive communications hub for staff; engagement with community trusted intermediaries to ensure groups have access to information and are encouraged to apply for relevant payments; and development of a communications and marketing campaign to tackle stigma specifically.

We also know that having to apply for benefits can be a barrier and prevent some families from accessing the support they are entitled to, particularly where those families are also members of priority or seldom-heard groups. We have already made progress around automation. We now award Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment automatically to eligible families who receive Scottish Child Payment. As a result, over 108,000 payments were made to families between 28 November 2022 and 30 June 2025 without the need for them to apply. The Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025 introduced new Childhood Assistance Powers. These will allow us to introduce greater alignment in the eligibility criteria for the Five Family Payments in due course and we will continue to identify opportunities for increased automation in the future.

Removal of harmful Universal Credit policies

We agree that the levels of Universal Credit have been too low for too long and continue to call on the UK Government to introduce an Essentials Guarantee, ensuring that social security benefits adequately cover the cost of essentials and better protect people from the harms of poverty. Furthermore, issues such as the five-week wait for the first payment of Universal Credit, which leads to people requesting an advanced payment and starting with a debt, results in reductions of their already inadequate Universal Credit payment.

The UK Government has also decided to cut the Universal Credit Health Element for people who apply for it after April 2026.^[23] There is still time for the UK Government to step back from this damaging policy, and we strongly urge them to scrap the harmful proposals. This has been echoed by the Work and Pensions Committee, who have urged that this measure should be delayed until the UK Government has had time to fully assess the impact this will have on poverty, health and labour force participation.^[24]

In 2024, we spent almost £154 million mitigating the impacts from UK Government policies such as the bedroom tax and benefit cap. In 2026/27, we are investing a further £155 million to mitigate the two-child limit – with an estimated 43,000 children directly benefitting from this support. If we did not have to continually mitigate against the worst policies of the UK Government, this would allow us to make greater progress toward eradicating child poverty in Scotland. We also launched Scottish Child Payment in 2021, providing unparalleled financial support to families and driving progress in reducing levels of child poverty in Scotland. However, this investment is in effect also mitigating against the inadequate level of support provided for families by Universal Credit.

Were the UK Government to step-up and take the action it should do by abolishing the two-child limit, the First Minister has committed that the money we have committed will be reinvested in further ambitious measures to end child poverty.

2. Accessible, affordable and equitable services

The Expert Group highlighted the importance of public services being accessible and affordable in helping to lower household costs and increase access to the labour market. They highlighted childcare, housing, transport and social care as key services.

Our vision for Scotland is one where everyone has access to services that are affordable and equitable. Recent events such as Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and on-going international conflicts have put significant pressure on public services. Future challenges such as an aging population, rising demand and fiscal constraints will continue to exacerbate these pressures.

The below outlines our current commitments in these areas and sets out where work is on-going to improve even further.

Expanding services

The Scottish Government and our partners have continued to increase investment in public services and the public sector workforce. But we know that investment, while welcome, is not enough. That is why in June 2025 we published our Public Service Reform Strategy ^[25], which will allow us to deliver a system that improves lives, reduces inequality and is fiscally sustainable. In delivering the Public Service Reform Strategy we will significantly increase the scale and pace of change and create a system that is collaborative and integrated by default.

Childcare

Scotland is the only part of the UK to already offer 1,140 hours a year of funded early learning and childcare to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds regardless of their parents’ working status – putting children first. This equates to 30 hours per week during term time, or 22 hours per week if taken all year round. We have invested around £1 billion every year in funded early learning and childcare since 2021 because this is fundamental to giving children the best start in life. If families paid for this themselves, it would cost them more than £6,000 per eligible child per year.

School age childcare is also a vital part of our approach to tackling child poverty, improving children’s outcomes and advancing gender equality. Our School Age Childcare Programme^[26] is being implemented to design and test funded school age childcare services in targeted communities across Scotland, including urban, rural and remote areas. Funding is targeted locally to support families in one or more of the priority groups identified as being at risk of living in poverty in Best Start, Bright Futures.^[27]

It provides a range of services before and after the school day as well as during school holidays, including breakfast clubs, activities provision and specialist providers supporting children with complex additional support needs. These services enable parents – particularly those from low-income households – to access, sustain, and progress in work, helping families improve their financial circumstances.

We are taking a place-based and people-centred approach to work with local authorities, providers and communities to understand what it takes to deliver local childcare systems that support families with children from the early years to the end of primary school, and the difference this can make in ending child poverty. We committed up to £16 million over two years in 23 Early Adopter Communities in six local authority areas to help us design and deliver early learning and school age childcare services for priority families.

In October 2024, we published an early evaluation^[28] of the four original school age childcare Early Adopter Communities. The evaluation showed positive feedback from families and evidence that services met children’s needs, including those with additional support needs. Childcare timings and locations worked well for families, supporting work schedules and offering flexibility, while reduced costs improved accessibility.

The next phase of Early Adopter Communities evaluation began in Spring 2025 and will assess impact, process, and spend, with findings due in late 2026. This phase includes gendered and intersectional analysis focusing on families who may face multiple barriers – minority ethnic families, single parents, disabled parents and those with children with additional support needs. We are working with gender equality experts to support inclusive data collection and reporting.

In addition, all local authorities are required to consult every two years with families in their area about how they should make early learning childcare and School Age Childcare available and then publish a service delivery plan. The National Standard^[29] for funded early learning and childcare makes clear that its settings must provide appropriate support, including making any reasonable changes to the care and learning environment, to ensure that children's additional support needs are not a barrier to them accessing the full range of experiences.

We recognise the particular challenges faced by parents of disabled children and those with additional support needs in accessing school age childcare and activity provision. To support these services, we announced an additional £1 million as part of the 2025/26 Programme for Government to enhance the delivery of holiday playschemes and activities for disabled children across all 32 local authorities. Working through an improvement lens, we will work with our partners in local government to strengthen approaches and understand what it takes to move towards a position that ensures families have the support they need regardless of where they reside in Scotland.

In response to concerns about sustainability, cost and regulatory challenges affecting service providers, children and families, we conducted a Feasibility Study, in collaboration with the Care Inspectorate, to review the regulation of School Age Childcare. Following the study, we are proposing to create a new definition for School Age Childcare services within the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 which we hope will support the sustainability and quality of school age childcare services. Engagement with stakeholders will take place throughout 2025 with formal consultation expected to follow.

Housing

The launch of our Housing Emergency Action Plan^[30] in September 2025 marked an ambitious step change to tackle the housing emergency, both for the remainder of this Parliament and as part of our longer-term mission to eradicate child poverty.

It sets out a bold and coordinated response — one that tackles immediate pressures while laying the foundations for lasting, systemic change. Actions sit under three key objectives:

• Ending children living in unsuitable accommodation – as a vital part of the Scottish Government’s determination to eradicate child poverty;
• Supporting the housing needs of vulnerable communities; and
• Building our Future – maximising investment in Scotland’s housing sector.

We recognise that housing costs are a major driver of poverty and inequality. That is why we are taking decisive action to increase the supply of affordable and social homes, ensuring that every child has the best possible start in life and that no family is forced to live in unsuitable accommodation. To facilitate this, we are providing four years of funding certainty, with up to £4.9 billion in affordable housing investment between 2026/27 and 2029/30, leveraging both public and private capital to build confidence and delivery momentum to deliver around 36,000 affordable homes as part of our Affordable Housing Supply Programme. This investment will provide a home for up to 24,000 children.

In 2024/25 we helped bring almost 1,000 homes into affordable use through our £40m investment in acquisitions and voids. To accelerate progress, we have doubled our investment to £80 million in 2025/26. This will support the acquisition of at least 1,200 homes over the 18 months of the fund, helping 600 to 800 children quickly move out of temporary accommodation and into permanent tenancies. We have asked councils to prioritise the acquisition of family homes and to engage directly with households in quality temporary accommodation to explore permanent solutions.

In addition, we will raise the standard of rented homes by introducing Awaab’s Law in Scotland from March 2026, starting with action on damp and mould. We are also investing £2 million in Discretionary Housing Payments to help households in temporary accommodation transition into settled homes in the private rented sector.

This is on top of £97 million of investment in Discretionary Housing Payments this financial year (2025/26), helping to mitigate the UK Government’s bedroom tax and benefit cap policies, and providing support to households impacted by the ongoing Local Housing Allowance freeze.

We are also investing £1.5 million in a national Fund to Leave, which aims to help reduce the financial burden of leaving an abusive partner by providing financial support to help to pay for the essentials women and children need. This Fund could help up to 1,800 women and their children across the whole of Scotland, improving their housing outcome and assisting with the transition to a more stable and independent future.

The action we have set out to tackle the Housing Emergency encompasses a clear commitment to our children and to social justice. It also pledges to work to best effect with commercial, public and third sector partners to deal with the causes of housing uncertainty.

Social Care

The Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025^[31] is part of wider, meaningful changes we are bringing to strengthen social care services across Scotland to help improve the lives of those who access care, their loved ones and our valued workforce. Work is underway with COSLA to overhaul the eligibility criteria for adult social care. This has involved working with representatives from disabled people’s organisations, unpaid carers and others to ensure the approach for determining access to adult social care support is based on human rights and needs.

We are working at pace to implement the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 following the unanimous passing of the Bill. The reforms brought about by the legislation will strengthen the rights of care home residents, support unpaid carers, and expand access to independent advocacy and improve the flow of information across care setting. It is vital that we actively press ahead with these wide-ranging reforms.

We established the interim National Care Service Advisory Board^[32] in May 2025, and it is taking an evidence based approach to help drive meaningful improvements across the sector. The Board has an independent Chair and a diverse membership, including people with experience of accessing care services, unpaid carers, those who work in the sector, care providers, the NHS and local government.

We are also in the final year of implementation of the National Carers Strategy^[33], which sets out our cross-government approach to carer support and recognition, including through collaboration with local government, the Third Sector, the NHS and the wider public sector. The Strategy specifically considers the importance of all employers being positive about carers in the workforce and sets out our intentions regarding carers and employment at chapter four. This includes our commitment to fund and promote the Carer Positive employer accreditation scheme.^[34]

Our Carer Positive initiative is working to improve awareness and flexibility of unpaid carers in the workplace and as of October 2025, there are more than half a million employees working in 292 Carer Positive organisations across Scotland.

Transport

Accessible and affordable transport is essential for connecting families to education, employment, childcare and support services. It is critical in terms of shaping families' experience of poverty and supporting them to move out of poverty.

We continue our delivery of the National Transport Strategy^[35], which was published in partnership with COSLA. The Strategy sets a vision for a sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport system. The Strategy has four priorities for transport, which include 'Reduces Inequalities' and 'Improves our Health and Wellbeing'.

We permanently abolished peak rail fares in September 2025, this will help people with ongoing cost of living pressures, help to eradicate child poverty and tackle the climate emergency by saving existing rail passengers money, including parents and workers. It also seeks to encourage new, potential passengers onto the train and to leave the car at home.

We currently fund several initiatives to help make transport affordable – including concessionary travel and discounted fare schemes offering free bus travel for young people, disabled people and everyone over the age of 60, as well as road equivalent tariffs on ferries. Free bus travel is currently supporting with the cost of living and opening doors to opportunities, ensuring young people's backgrounds do not determine their future success.

We continue to improve our levels of support across Scotland. In 2025/26, we will deliver a £2 million national pilot to support free bus travel for people seeking asylum and a £2 bus fare cap pilot scheme will take place, within one of Scotland’s transport regions for 12 months, with the aim of encouraging more people to choose to travel by bus for work, study and leisure.

Concessionary ferry vouchers are provided to those who are eligible, to help them take sustainable journeys to the mainland, with vouchers for four single (or two return) free ferry trips each year. People aged under 22 and living within Orkney, Shetland or the Outer Hebrides can also receive free foot passenger travel on inter-island ferry services within their own local authority area.

We have worked with transport authorities and operators to deliver universal smartcards, modernise concessionary ferry travel and to bring contactless payment onto 99% of Scotland’s bus services. Our Traveline Scotland website and app were launched last year, enabling users to find information about all public transport modes, including cycle schemes, as well as detail on tickets available and total journey costs. The project helps to improve the way open transport data is managed and controlled, ensuring that best quality travel information is provided

We are working with the bus industry and other key stakeholders to develop measures to improve safe and responsible bus travel. This includes considering the potential for enhanced education, safety officers, and the development of a new behaviour code and process for the temporary suspension of travel cards for the national concessionary travel schemes. We will lay legislation for a new behaviour code and process for the temporary suspension of travel cards for national concessionary travel. This is conditional on the legislation passing Parliament. The cost of introducing a behaviour code and suspension policy is expected to be minimal.

Regional Transport Partnerships across Scotland are taking forward the delivery of their regional strategies, which tie into the national vision and priorities for transport. The upcoming Rural Delivery Plan and National Islands Plan will feature references to public transport in these communities.

Rising costs

We know that rising energy prices have had an impact on households across Scotland, which is why the Scottish Government established an energy Social Tariff Working Group^[36] in November 2024. However, the powers to deliver a social tariff are reserved to the UK parliament. The Social Tariff Working Group brought together consumer organisations and energy supplier to co-design a social tariff mechanism. The group’s final report was shared with the UK Government in March 2025, and we continue to press the UK Government and their Child Poverty Taskforce to urgently deliver a social tariff in the form of an automatic and targeted discount on energy bills to address unaffordable bills at source.

Keeping in touch with family and friends is vital for people’s wellbeing across Scotland, and too many people experience digital exclusion. The Expert Group highlights phone social tariffs as a way to sufficiently support those facing digital exclusion. However, phone social tariffs are provided voluntarily by Internet Service Providers and are reserved to the UK Government. We remain committed to working with partners to increase the uptake of social tariffs across Scotland.

3. Embedding fair work across Scotland

The Expert Group made recommendations for the Scottish and UK Government to work with employers to harness the full potential of their respective work agendas to reduce poverty and inequality.

We know that fair work can offer a sustainable route out of poverty for many families, and that parents need access to the right support, at the right time, to increase their income from employment. That is why we remain committed to delivering person-centred employability support for parents across Scotland, enhancing reach and effectiveness of support and establishing more effective links between services that play a role in supporting parents into work.

We are clear that the best way to protect the rights of Scotland’s workers in the long term is by devolving employment law. However, employment law, including the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, remains reserved to the UK Government.

WPI Economics identified in their ‘Economic Impact of a Minimum Income Guarantee’^[37] report that work incentives for those who can work are important. If there’s a weakened incentive to work, it can limit the impact of Minimum Income Guarantee-type policies on overall poverty reduction, and lead to ‘benefit traps’ or distortions in the labour market and fail to cater to the needs of those who should be the primary beneficiaries of a Minimum Income Guarantee.

Increasing access to fair work

Our vision has been for Scotland to be a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025, and we continue to use fair work to drive success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society.

Introduced in July 2023, Fair Work First conditionality^[38] requires recipients of public sector grants to pay their workers at least the real Living Wage – including 16 and 17 year old workers and apprentices – and provide channels for effective workers’ voice. Between July 2023 and March 2024 we applied these conditions to over £2.6bn worth of public sector grants. Only a very low percentage of employers requested and received an exception for payment of the real Living Wage, with the majority of those for apprentices.

We are currently undertaking an evaluation of our Fair Work First policy, working with stakeholders, including trade union partners, to understand how effectively it is being delivered and what more can be done to strengthen our approach. This will include consideration of further extension of conditionality of Fair Work First requirements, such as living hours. We will continue to engage with relevant sectors to encourage and promote fair work practices across the whole of Scotland.

Since October 2021, workers on Scottish Government contracts must be paid at least the real Living Wage, and other public bodies must consider including Fair Work First criteria when planning contracts. Suppliers may be asked to provide evidence that they meet the criteria, in line with the tender response. While we do not have the devolved powers required to mandate this, we have created guidance, training, and case studies to help public bodies in their practical implementation. This Government will continue to focus on all the Fair Work First elements to promote a balanced approach to fair work practices through public procurement spend.

We have championed the real Living Wage since 2015 and were the first government in the UK to become an Accredited Living Wage Employer. Scotland remains the best performing of all four UK countries with 88.7% of employees (18+) paid the real Living Wage or more.^[39] We will continue to promote payment of real Living Wage and living hours to all workers 16 years and over.

Scottish Ministers support the UK Government’s New Deal for Working People^[40] and its intention to remove the age barriers of minimum wage levels, bringing 18+ year old workers up to the same level as those over 21. However, the minimum wage levels set by UK Government are still below the real Living Wage, albeit the differential is getting smaller. The UK Government has not indicated that they will include 16 and 17 year old workers or apprentices in this policy.

Improving conditions

We welcome the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill^[41] and are working with them to ensure it has a positive impact across Scotland.

The UK Government’s impact assessment of the Employment Rights Bill^[42] noted that workers in low-paid occupations would be impacted most. The UK Government expect that employers across all sectors will need to invest time into understanding the new regulations and adapt to these. It will predominantly be employers in low-paying sectors who face less predictable demand that will be most heavily impacted.

Although employment law is reserved, the Scottish Government can and does encourage sectoral bargaining and broader fair work agreements. Scottish Government officials are currently working with key stakeholder to progress the introduction of sectoral bargaining for the commissioned adult social care sector. The UK Government is proposing a Pay Negotiation Body for Social Care as part of the wider Employment Rights Bill, which may include delivering relevant powers to enable Scottish Ministers to establish a Scottish Negotiating Body, and we have been encouraging the UK Government to move forward as quickly as possible with this.

Each of these options will encourage improvements in pay, and terms and conditions, that are specific to the social care workforce and take into consideration the roles and responsibilities across the sector.

The Scottish Government is actively working to finalise a voluntary sectoral bargaining framework for the social care sector. This framework has been co-designed with key stakeholders, including representatives from care providers, trade unions, regulators and local government, to ensure it reflects the needs and realities of the sector.

Based on the draft provisions in the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill, Scottish Ministers will then consider options around establishing voluntary sectoral bargaining arrangements, based on the framework that has been designed in partnership with our stakeholders, alongside the potential of a regulatory Social Care Negotiating Body.

We understand how important it is for workers, including those in the care sector, to be able to raise and discuss issues which impact them in the workplace. That is way we are working with sector stakeholders to embed the principles of Effective Voice in social care, to enable staff to engage in meaningful, constructive dialogue within their employers to help promote fair working conditions, develop best practice, and deliver high quality care.

Our commitment to tackling low pay has also been backed with funding. We have provided funding continuously each year since 2016 to ensure adult social care workers delivering direct care are paid at least the real Living Wage. This was extended to incorporate children’s social care which takes the total investment to deliver this policy to almost £1 billion each year. This meant that in the 2025/26 budget, we committed nearly £2.2 billion to support social care and integration.

In the childcare sector, the National Standard for Early Learning and Childcare^[43] requires that all services who agree to deliver the funded Early Learning and Childcare will pay at least the real Living Wage to all childcare workers delivering the funded entitlement and commit to operating Fair Work Practices. This is to ensure that funded Early Learning and Childcare is delivered in high quality settings and addressing working conditions for the profession.

To support this the Scottish Government continues to provide the funding – which providers receive through the sustainable hourly rate paid by local authorities for the delivery of funded Early Learning and Childcare – to enable childcare workers in private and third sector services delivering funded Early Learning and Childcare to be paid at least the real Living Wage. All sectors – public, private, third or childminding – must meet the conditions set out in the National Standard if they are to provide funded Early Learning and Childcare. We have made Fair Work central to the 1,140 hours expansion to date – our investment to support sustainable rates and the Early Learning and Childcare real Living Wage commitment has already led to increases in pay across private and third sector providers.

Employability services

We are utilising existing powers devolved under the Scotland Act 2016 on employment support, with the No One Left Behind approach providing person-centred employability services and helping people further removed from the labour market to progress towards and into sustainable fair work. Support is available in every local authority area for people of all ages who experience structural barriers to participating in the labour market. These services support people with health conditions, disabled people, parents, and many others.

Through No One Left Behind^[44], we have supported more than 86,000 people between April 2019 and March 2025, with more than 26,000 moving into employment so far. Destinations such as further or higher education, training, gaining a qualification, work experience and volunteering are also recognised as positive outcomes for participants where this is right for them on their journey towards employment.

Enabling parents and carers to enter sustainable work and supporting them to increase their income from employment is a crucial element needed to tackle child poverty. In line with commitments in Best Start, Bright Futures, over £40 million of Employability funding has been made available for Parental Employability Support in 2025/26 to increase parental income from employment. Our services have supported more than 28,000 parents between April 2020 and June 2025^[45] and we remain committed to enhancing the reach and effectiveness of support and establishing more effective links between services that play a role in supporting parents into work.

Service eligibility has been broadened to include parents in low-income employment, with a specific focus on the six priority family groups, enabling more parents to access tailored support to help them increase their income. Our service eligibility has also been designed to recognise different family structures, such as kinship care, or those who are parents but not living with their children.

We are seeing positive progress in the number of parents, disabled people and people from minority ethnic backgrounds accessing No One Left Behind services. We remain committed to halving the disability employment gap and have introduced Specialist Employment Support for disabled people which will enhance existing provision and support more disabled people to access and sustain employment.

Whilst there is still more to do, we have seen considerable progress in the number of disabled people accessing employability support through No One Left Behind since the move to delivery through Local Employability Partnerships. Almost 20,000 people accessing No One Left Behind have reported a disability and almost 4,500 disabled people have entered employment, with many more achieving other positive outcomes which will assist on their journey towards and into work.

Devolved employability services are voluntary, meaning people are not mandated to access support, participation is not linked to benefit entitlement, and people who choose to take part are not directed towards poor quality work as quickly as possible to meet short term job-start targets. Our policy position is clear that, if we are to support aims around poverty reduction and ensure it’s sustainable, people should be treated with fairness, dignity and respect with access to support that recognises their individual needs and circumstances.

The No One Left Behind Strategic Plan 2024-27^[46] sets out our shared priorities with COSLA and local government partners for devolved employability services moving forward and reaffirms our commitment to continuous improvement.

We remain committed to improving our services to ensure they deliver for the people who need them most. The Programme for Government 2025/26 included a commitment to review the delivery of employability programmes to maximise their effectiveness and bring forward proposals ahead of the next budget. Work on this is underway and we will continue working across Government at all levels, national and local, to understand how we can effectively deliver better integration and alignment of services and support to remove barriers to employment and tackle economic inactivity.

4. Equalities, intersectionality and piloting

The Expert Group made recommendations around improving intersectional data, increasing the support available for unpaid carers, disabled people, those with care experience and island communities. They also recommended a pilot Minimum Income Guarantee.

Intersectional data and evidence

Good quality equality evidence is essential to informing our understanding of what is happening in the lives of all the people in Scotland and in implementing effective solutions to tackle structural inequality, helping the people who need it most.

The Scottish Government has always been committed to equality and human rights across all aspects of its work. In our 2025-2029 Equality Outcomes^[47] we have committed to strengthening the collection, analysis and publication of equality and intersectional evidence as a result of identifying and filling gaps. As a result, there will be better, and more consistent, use of equality and intersectional evidence in public and corporate policy design, monitoring and evaluation.

The Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025^[48] sought to make improvements to the availability and analysis of equality data across Scottish Government, this includes disaggregated and intersectional data. An evaluation of the Strategy is currently being undertaken and is due to be published early 2026. In addition, work is underway to begin the development of the next Equality Evidence Strategy in collaboration with analysts, policymakers and external organisations interested in improving equality evidence. We expect the collection and use of intersectional equality data to remain a priority in the next strategy. We are also continuing to improve the Equality Evidence Finder platform to make equality and intersectional data more accessible to analysts, policymakers, and the public.

The research by The Collective^[49], on an intersectional analysis of the work of the Expert Group, rightly highlighted that Social Security Scotland have a good example of progress in this area. However, the report also calls out that this needs to go further.

We have continued to build and improve our data sets around intersectionality. In August 2025, Social Security Scotland published an intersectional analysis on the protected characteristics of people applying for benefits.^[50] Intersectionality analysis describes the intersecting characteristics of applicants and clients and increased the depth of information Social Security Scotland published. Work is also being undertaken to scope the feasibility of an intersectional analysis of Social Security Scotland Annual Client Satisfaction Survey report data and if this could be replicated annually.

Disabled people

We have already transformed financial support for disabled people in Scotland, establishing a radically different system to the UK Government. Our essential support helps with the additional costs disabled people face meeting their everyday needs such as washing, going to the toilet, getting dressed, communicating and eating – tasks of course, which non-disabled people take for granted. Our compassionate approach to disability benefits is deliberately designed to ensure as many disabled people as possible get the help that they need and are entitled to.

Social security is a human right and none of us know when we might need it – it is a shared investment to help build a fairer society, together.

In line with our Social Security Principles, we have designed disability benefits putting the needs of those applying for and receiving them front and centre. In 2025/26 we will invest around £3.6 billion in Adult Disability Payment, providing a vastly improved experience for people accessing our support. This is £320 million more than the funding we are forecasted to receive from the UK Government through the corresponding Social Security Block Grant Adjustment, money that is going directly to disabled people.

We have also heard from families about the important difference that Child Disability Payment can make by helping with the extra costs of caring for a disabled child. Child Disability Payment has paid out over £1.2 billion to families with disabled children. As of June 2025, it was estimated that over 91,800 children and young people were receiving Child Disability Payment.

We launched Pension Age Disability Payment nationally in April 2025, which pays up to £441 a month extra to people over the State Pension Age. It is for the more than 170,000 disabled people or people with a long-term health condition who need help looking after themselves or supervision to stay safe. The launch of Pension Age Disability Payment, our final form of devolved disability assistance, means that disabled people of all ages in Scotland are now able to receive support from a social security system based on dignity, fairness and respect.

While the UK Government seek to make cuts to the vital support disabled people rely on, the Scottish Government has committed to not cutting disability benefits. Instead, we will work to protect and enhance Scotland’s social security system, improving on what we have achieved so far.

Our support for disabled people goes beyond social security. After a successful period of co-production, the Independent Living Fund reopened to new applicants in April 2024. The Independent Living Fund enables some of the most disabled people in Scotland, who face the greatest barriers to independent living, to access the support they need to lead independent lives. We also know that adaptations play a vital role, which is why we have more than doubled funding for the Registered Social Landlords Adaptations Programme to £20.9 million this year. This reflects the importance we place on delivering necessary adaptations to enable disabled people to live independently at home. We have also committed to undertake a review of the current housing adaptations system and this work will make recommendations on how best to improve and streamline the system and better target our resources.

Specialist services to help disabled people find and remain in suitable work have been expanded to cover the whole of Scotland. We have invested an additional £5 million to enable disabled people living in all 32 local authority areas to access tailored support through their local employability partnership.

This includes helping people in their job search, helping companies to make their roles suitable for a disabled person, guidance for employers and potential employees in making required workplace adjustments and ongoing in-work support to support employee retention.

Additionally, we published our Disability Equality Plan^[51] in June 2025 – a key milestone in our commitment to advancing the rights and equality of disabled people in Scotland. The launch of the Disability Equality Plan marks a significant milestone in our journey toward a fairer, more equal Scotland. Realising this vision requires bold, sustained action to tackle discrimination, remove barriers, and advance equality in every aspect of life. It includes actions across key areas including mental health, independent living, financial support, digital inclusion and energy, and commits to embedding disability competence across the Scottish Government, to ensure that policies and services are designed with disabled people, not just for them.

To support the delivery of the Plan, we are investing £3 million to strengthen the services and projects disabled people rely on. This includes a new £1.5 million fund to support projects that improve the lives of disabled people by addressing key challenges they face.

Unpaid carers

Scotland’s unpaid carers provide essential support to those they care for and contribute over £13 billion to the Scottish economy. We are transforming financial support for unpaid carers, building a different system, based on dignity, fairness and respect.

It is vital that we tackle inequalities and remove barriers that people face in the labour market, recognising the impact of caring responsibilities on women in particular, who provide the majority of unpaid care.^[52] The impact of women reducing hours, not taking or applying for promotions, or leaving the labour market to provide unpaid care contributes to Scotland's gender pay gap. Better supporting carers to enter or stay in work, where they wish and are able to do so alongside caring, brings vital benefits to employers as well as to carers and the economy.

Carer Support Payment is designed to make it easier for carers to work alongside their caring role. We increased the earnings threshold for Carer Support Payment to £196 from April 2025. The increase means carers will be able to earn an additional £45 per week and still receive the benefit, helping to remove barriers to work, and provide more stable financial support.

We committed to making further improvements to support for carers as soon as possible after case transfer from Carer’s Allowance completed. The case transfer process began in February 2024 and completed in October 2025. The improvements include:

• Introducing Carer Additional Person Payment – a new payment of £10 a week for carers receiving Carer Support Payment and caring for more than one person; in recognition of the impact that multiple caring roles have on carers’ wellbeing.
• Extending the period Carer Support Payment is paid after the loss of a cared for person, from 8 to 12 weeks. This will provide more stable support at a very difficult time for carers.
• Changing the way we pay Carer’s Allowance Supplement – which will become Scottish Carer Supplement – so that carers get more regular and more accurate payments.
• Extending eligibility for Young Carer Grant, currently available to 16-18 year olds, to 19 year olds.

We are also continuing to consider the response to the public consultation on potential longer term improvements. Decisions on any further changes will need to take into account affordability, sustainability, and discussions with DWP on any implications for carers’ wider support.

Care experienced and care leavers

We recognise the particular challenges faced by young people who are moving on from care and into adulthood. At any age and for any young person, moving on from home is a challenging time, but when there are limited support networks in place, these challenges can be exacerbated.

We support young people transitioning from care into more independent living through our Continuing Care and Aftercare policies. Continuing care enables eligible young people living in foster, kinship or residential care at age 16 to remain in their care setting until their 21^st birthday and includes financial support to help them grow and develop their life skills in young adulthood.

In our 2025/26 Programme for Government we committed to introducing the Care Leaver Payment of £2,000 from 1^st April 2026. The proposed Care Leaver Payment is intended to help reduce some of the financial barriers that young people face whilst moving into adulthood and more independent living. Eligible young people will automatically receive the Care Leaver Payment when they leave care or Continuing Care to help them as they make the transition into more independent living.

Aftercare refers to the advice, guidance and assistance provided to eligible children leaving care from age 16; available up to age 26, and potentially on, based on need. This can include (but is not restricted to) securing accommodation, education and employment opportunities, and financial support.

The Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill will expand eligibility for Aftercare to a wider group of care-experienced children by introducing a right for those who were ‘looked after’ but who left care before their 16th birthday to apply for Aftercare to meet their eligible needs from their 16th birthday up to age 26.

By widening eligibility and upstreaming support, we will help improve outcomes for young people with care experience, enabling a positive transition into young adulthood and helping them thrive.

Island and rural communities

We are committed to delivering for our communities in mainland rural Scotland. We are publishing a Rural Delivery Plan which will set out the actions that this government is and will be taking which impact rural mainland communities, placing a new focus on rural delivery.

We are also developing a second iteration of the National Islands Plan, which will provide a clear programme of actions to build ever more resilient, sustainable and prosperous island communities. The new National Islands Plan will be laid before the Scottish Parliament by the end of the year and have Community Wealth Building as one of its underpinning principles. Its development has been informed by close collaboration with island communities, local authorities and delivery partners to ensure the Plan addresses the key challenges and opportunities facing our islands.

We commissioned research to explore and understand the changing nature and context of poverty in Scottish rural and island communities since 2010.^[53] The final report was published in September 2025 and outlines the trends and patterns, potential drivers of these trends and implications for policy, practice and research. This work will inform policy development moving forward.

In the meantime, through the Islands Cost Crisis Emergency Fund we have distributed £4.4 million since 2022 to help island local authorities support those households most impacted by cost-of-living pressures. The 2025/26 Budget allocates over £9 million to island-focused investments, in addition to continued support across portfolios including transport, housing and health.

Since 2021/2022, through the Islands Programme capital funding scheme we have supported 88 locally-led critical infrastructure projects on 55 islands, for a combined total of £19.7 million. Projects supported by the scheme range from a new nursery in Kirkwall and the expansion of the Tigh-a-Rhuda Care Home on Tiree, to the redevelopment of the old Bigton Kirk to serve as a warm space and community hub.

As mentioned previously, housing continues to be a key priority for this government, ensuring access to the high-quality affordable homes which rural and island communities require. Which is why we are committed to delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which at least 70% will be for social rent and at least 10% will be in rural and island areas through our Affordable Housing Supply Programme. This is supported by our dedicated Rural and Islands Housing Action Plan^[54] and complimented by our demand-led Rural and Islands Housing Fund, which we have extended to March 2028. We are also providing funding of up to £25 million for the demand-led Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund up to March 2028. These Funds are key elements in addressing specific rural housing issues where they arise. Additionally, we will expand our work engaging public bodies, landowners and the Scottish National Investment Bank to unlock land for housing in rural and island Scotland, building delivery capacity and developing a pipeline of investment opportunities.

Impact on women

As the Expert Group have acknowledged in their recommendations it is vital to do the work to understand the impact any Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland would have on women, to identify any potential unintended consequences and to put in place mechanisms to mitigate those.

WPI Economics identified in their ‘Economic Impact of a Minimum Income Guarantee’ report Minimum Income Guarantee-type policies may make women more likely than men to exit the labour market. This underscores the importance of balancing social security supports with interventions to tackle barriers to labour market access, such as childcare.

The evaluation published in September 2025 shows that our Five Family Payments are helping families financially, enabling children to take part in social and educational activities, and are improving overall health and wellbeing. The evaluation specifically looked at the impact of Scottish Child Payment on people’s labour market choices. This shows that for 69% of clients who responded, the Scottish Child Payment had no impact on their decisions around employment or was not applicable. For the 29% who reported an impact the most common impact was helping with work costs such as travel or clothing (45%) followed by enabling them to stay in work or work more hours (23%).

While this is a positive response, before the end of this parliament, we will explore further work to understand the impact of existing social security interventions, such as Scottish Child Payment and mitigation of the two-child limit, on women. This will be important to pave the way to ensuring that women’s contributions through unpaid work are recognised and that they are also given the right support to participate and remain in the workforce where this is their goal.

Minimum Income Guarantee pilot

The Expert Group’s report outlined that a multi year pilot would be essential to ensure the necessary lessons learned can be built into the later stages of their Roadmap. The report mentions that unpaid carers, care leavers, island communities, low-income migrants and disabled adults are examples of population groups who could be considered for a pilot.

In 2022 the Welsh Government announced a Basic Income for Care Leavers pilot. Care leavers who turned 18 years of age between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 had the opportunity to receive £1,600 pre-tax per month for a period of up to 24 months to enable them to fulfil their aims and ambitions and build a platform for their transition from care into adult life. The pilot formally concluded in June 2025 and is currently undergoing a programme of evaluation. The final evaluation report is due to be published Spring 2027.

Also in 2022, Ireland introduced a Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Research programme. Participants received grants valuing 325 euros per week. Their pilot scheme is due to conclude in February 2026, and the Irish Government are currently carrying out an evaluation of the scheme with a view of deciding on what succeeds it by February 2026.

We previously funded an independent Steering Group to research the feasibility of piloting a Citizens’ Basic Income in Scotland. In June 2020, the Steering Group published a report concluding that piloting would be desirable, but the Scottish Parliament does not have the necessary range of social security and tax powers to do so. Any pilot scheme would require further devolution or close cooperation from the UK Government, which was not forthcoming.

However, we will continue to look to Wales and Ireland for lessons to be learned from their Basic Income pilot schemes. There are of course some key differences between a Basic Income and a Minimum Income Guarantee. As a result, the next government should consider exploring what a Minimum Income Guarantee pilot could look like under current powers in Scotland and impact what a pilot might mean for different groups.