Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice

Responsibilities

The Cabinet Secretary is responsible for:

• Baby Box
• benefit automation and advice services
• human rights
• minimum income guarantee
• Ministerial Taskforce on Population
• national mission for tackling child poverty
• Office of Chief Social Policy Advisor
• Scottish Government benefits (development and delivery)
• Scottish Welfare Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs)
• social justice, tackling poverty and inequalities
• Social Security Scotland
• third sector, social enterprises and Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)
• UN treaty incorporation including United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

Supporting Ministers

• Minister for Equalities
• Minister for Housing

Biography

Educated at Kirkcaldy High School, she then graduated from the University of Strathclyde with a BA (Hons) in Economics and Politics (1996), followed by a Diploma in Housing Studies at the University of Stirling and a Diploma in Public Relations from Queen Margaret University College.

She has worked as a parliamentary researcher, a Policy and Public Affairs Officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, and as a Media and Campaigns Officer at the Royal College of Nursing.

Shirley-Anne was previously an MSP for the Lothians region from 2007 to 2011, and returned to the Scottish Parliament in 2016 as MSP for Dunfermline. Shirley-Anne Somerville was previously Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, and was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People in June 2018. She was most recently Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills until March 2023. Shirley-Anne Somerville was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice in March 2023.

• Read more about Shirley-Anne Somerville on the Scottish Parliament website.