Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018: progress report 2024 to 2025

4. Performance of the system and delivery of the Charter

4.1 Duty to promote take-up

As set out in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, Scottish Ministers have a statutory duty to promote take-up of devolved entitlements. As part of this duty, the Scottish Government must periodically publish a Benefit Take-Up Strategy, which was most recently published in October 2021. In 2024-25, the Scottish Government, together with Social Security Scotland, continued to deliver on the principles set out in the 2021 Benefit Take-Up Strategy through, for example, targeted communications and marketing activity, engagement with stakeholders representing key client groups and trusted intermediaries, and provision of application support through Social Security Scotland’s Local Delivery service and by funding the Social Security Independent Advocacy Service.

In 2024-25, we also provided more than £645,000 investment in Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships, following completion of a Scottish Government funded pilot. This continuity funding is intended to support delivery partners to embed the Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships model within local income maximisation services. Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships embed Welfare Right Advisors in participating GP Practices, allowing patients to be referred for advice and support on a range of issues, including social security entitlement. Evaluation of the initiative, published by the Improvement Service in September 2024, has highlighted the positive impacts of the model. Key findings show that over 16,000 people accessed advice through a participating partnership, with 89% of those people engaging with advice services for the first time.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone takes up the social security support they are entitled to. However, there are groups of people who are under-represented and often poorly engaged by public services, including the social security system. That is why, in May 2024, we published independent research providing better understanding of these seldom-heard groups and the barriers they face when accessing social security support. This research activity, and subsequent market research undertaken by Social Security Scotland, directly informed communications and engagement approaches for seldom-heard groups over the last year, as well as a plan that includes continued activity to support these communities to take up entitlements.

Stigma continues to act as a persistent barrier to the take-up of social security assistance and we are committed to challenging that stigma. To develop our understanding of the impacts of stigma on benefit take-up, in May 2024, the Poverty Alliance published a report from a Scottish Government commissioned Citizens’ Panel with people with lived experience of poverty. This Citizens’ Panel examined how stigma influences take-up of social security entitlements, as well as suggested practical steps the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland could take to address this.

This benefit take-up research has shown that many of the persistent barriers to take-up, including stigma, are shared across seldom-heard groups and that due to this intersectionality, system-wide interventions may be more effective than those targeting individual groups alone. As such, across 2024-25, the Scottish Government, working closely with Social Security Scotland, has developed an outcomes framework in response to the research recommendations to inform focused actions that will be delivered in the run-up to the next Benefit Take-Up Strategy, due to be published by October 2026. Lessons learned from the implementation of these actions will inform development of this next strategy.

4.2 Independent Advocacy

Scottish Ministers are required by section 10 of the 2018 Act to make independent advocacy support available to disabled people who need such support to engage with the Scottish social security system. Following free and open procurement, the Social Security Independent Advocacy Service was launched on 31 Jan 2022. The service is independent of the Scottish Government and is delivered by VoiceAbility, a charity with 40 years’ experience of delivering independent advocacy services.

The service is available to anyone who is disabled and would like advocacy support to interact with the Scottish social security system. The service is free to use, and people do not need to have a medical diagnosis to access it. As such it is making social security more accessible to disabled people in Scotland and supporting them to be more involved in the processes and decisions that affect them.

We have committed to investing up to £20.4m in the service over the four years of the current contract, which ends on 30 January 2026. A free and open procurement exercise is currently underway for the next contract to ensure disabled people continue to receive support needed to access their Social Security Scotland entitlements.

As of 31 May 2025, the service had provided advocacy support to 11,434 people in 13,089 cases (some people have engaged with the service for support with multiple entitlements). Most referrals made to the service are for support to apply for Scottish disability benefits – specifically Adult Disability Payment - but the service remains open and available to disabled people requiring support across all Scottish benefits.

4.3 Scottish Commission on Social Security

The Scottish Commission on Social Security (SCoSS), established in January 2019, is an independent advisory Non-Departmental Public Body with a primary purpose to undertake scrutiny of the Scottish social security system.

SCoSS produces its own annual report and accounts, which can be found on the SCoSS website. In 2024-25 it produced seven scrutiny reports, on:

• Funeral Expense Assistance (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024;
• Disability Assistance (Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance) Regulations 2024;
• Winter Heating Assistance (Pension Age) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 and a further response to a second set of draft Winter Heating Assistance (Pension Age) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 (which were subsequently not enacted);
• Social Security (Up-rating) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2025;
• Social Security (Residence and Presence Requirements) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025;
• Carer’s Assistance (Young Carer Grant and Carer Support Payment) (Miscellaneous Amendment and Saving Provision) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 and a further response on an additional provision subsequently included in the Carer’s Assistance (Young Carer Grant and Carer Support Payment) (Miscellaneous Amendment and Saving Provision) (Scotland) Regulations 2025; and
• Social Security (Cross-border Provision, Case Transfer and Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025.

Social Security Scotland’s 2022-23 Client Survey highlighted a pattern of lower satisfaction ratings among certain demographic groups including people with communication needs which was broadly repeated in the 2023-24 Client Survey. This prompted SCoSS to conduct research into the experiences of people with communications needs which was proactively published in their report in April 2025. SCoSS also provided informal commentary on proposed regulations to support the delivery of free school meals to primary six and seven pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment.

The minutes of Board and sub-committee meetings and all scrutiny reports for 2024-25 are available on the SCoSS website.

4.4 Our Charter and the Charter Measurement Framework

The Charter Measurement Framework outlines how the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland are delivering social security and the Charter commitments in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, including the commitment to treat everyone with dignity, fairness and respect. It also helps the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland with continuous improvement.

The Social Security Charter was written in 2019 with the commitment that it be reviewed every 5 years. The review process commenced in November 2022 and was approved by Parliament on 26 June 2024. The review process involved statutory consultation with:

• Clients of Social Security Scotland, including those with protected characteristics defined under the Equality Act 2010
• External stakeholders who represent these groups
• SCoSS

Changes to the Charter include new commitments which outline what people can expect when they apply for a benefit and more information about how performance and feedback are used to make improvements.