Seldom Heard Groups Action Plan

Ministerial Foreword

Ensuring that every eligible individual in Scotland can access the social security support they are entitled to is both a legal duty and a fundamental priority for the Scottish Government. This commitment reflects our belief that social security is a human right and an investment in the people of Scotland. We remain firmly committed to delivering that support with dignity, fairness and respect.

We have built a social security system on that foundation—one that seeks to reduce barriers, not create them. One that recognises the importance of taking active steps to reach people, rather than expecting them to come forward on their own.

Despite the significant progress we have made, we know that some people still miss out on the financial support they are entitled to. This is particularly true for seldom-heard groups—people whose voices and experiences are often underrepresented in public policy and service design, and who face intersecting disadvantages that make it harder to engage with the system.

In our 2021 Benefit Take-Up Strategy, we committed to understanding and engaging more meaningfully with these seldom-heard groups. To support this, we commissioned two independent pieces of research: one was a comprehensive evidence review of the seldom-heard groups within the social security system and the barriers they face, and another was a Citizens’ Panel, facilitated by the Poverty Alliance, which examined the impact of stigma on benefit take-up from those with lived experiences of it. Findings from this research have enhanced our understanding of who these groups are and the specific, often systemic, challenges they face in accessing their entitlements.

Crucially, these findings reaffirm that the human rights-based, person-centred approach set out in our Benefit Take-Up Strategy is the right one. But it also makes clear that there is more we can do to ensure that our social security system works for everyone. Guided by these insights, this Seldom-Heard Groups Action Plan aims to enhance our approach to benefit take-up for these groups by implementing a focussed programme of work over the next 12 months, in the run-up to the publication of the next Benefit Take-Up Strategy in 2026.

This plan outlines practical steps the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland will take to better listen to, engage with, and support those who are too often excluded from the social security system.

By delivering this plan, we will ensure seldom-heard groups are effectively supported when interacting with the social security system. The lessons learned from this delivery will also inform our next Benefit Take-Up Strategy, as we take another meaningful step towards our vision of a truly accessible and compassionate social security system for Scotland.

Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice