Social Security Experience Panels: Carer's Allowance Supplement - letters

Next Steps

As described above, this research was used to help make sure that the letter and supplementary information made available to recipients was as clear and straight forward as possible.

Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland will continue to seek feedback from people who have received Carer's Allowance Supplement to make sure that the information provided can continue to improve.

Carer's Allowance will also be delivered by Social Security Scotland in the future. When the Social Security Scotland is responsible for full delivery of Carer's Allowance, our first priority is to ensure that carers in Scotland who currently receive, and in many cases depend on Carer's Allowance payments continue to receive payments at the right amount and at the right time.

When we are responsible for all aspects of delivering Carer's Allowance we will also have scope to make changes to the benefit. In doing so we will consider these findings and will continue to work with the Experience Panel to ensure that any changes we make are tailored to best suit the needs of the people in Scotland.

This research will be the starting point for further work to understand how the application process, eligibility and payment of Carer's Allowance can be improved for carers in Scotland, alongside considerations about how we communicate effectively with carers about what support is available.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Experience Panels in this work, along with further research on other benefits and the development of Social Security Scotland.