Social security - benefit take-up strategy: easy read - October 2021
Easy read version of our strategy outlining our work on benefit take-up to date, as well as setting out our next steps.
Benefit Take-up Strategy: October 2021 - Easy Read Version
Introduction
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This Strategy says how the Scottish Government will help more people to claim Scottish benefits. A strategy is a plan.
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This will help Scotland to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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We will work with organisations and people who use the benefit system.
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This builds on the first Strategy from 2019. It includes what we have learnt.
What are we doing to get more people to claim benefits?
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We will give more people advice. This includes at doctor's surgeries and in schools.
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Social Security Scotland will put staff in all council areas.
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We will work with organisations to find out what works best.
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We will make more helpful resources.
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We will connect services.
We will work with vulnerable people to understand why they are not claiming benefits.
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We will encourage a positive attitude about benefits.
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This Strategy is based on five principles. Principles are the way we will work.
Principle 1: Put people first
We will:
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- Find out how best to support people in the right place.
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- Have the right information at the right time.
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- Make it easier to access benefits. Make the system straightforward.
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- Reach different people, especially groups that have protected characteristics. Protected characteristics are things such as age, disability, race, sex, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or religion or belief.
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- Work with the people who are using the system.
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- Use person-centred planning.
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- Pay attention to all needs. This will stop inequalities when using the system.
Principle 2: Communicate and engage with people
We will:
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- Communicate and engage to meet people's needs.
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- Work with other organisations to reach more people.
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- Use different ways to communicate to suit everyone's needs. This will mean we get the right information to people.
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- Make our service inclusive. We will use different formats and languages. People can engage with us how they need to.
- Work extra hard to get messages to hard to reach groups.
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- Gather more information and use what we learn so the system is always getting better.
Principle 3: Bring services to people
We will:
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- Get information to the right people.
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- Make sure that Social Security Scotland supports local communities.
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- Work with other organisations to understand the needs of clients. We can work to spread our messages.
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- Spend money on services so people can access advice.
Principle 4: Systems to work together
We will:
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- Work together to make the best services.
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- Work with other services to increase people's income.
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- Listen to people with experience of the system.
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- Share examples of good work.
Principle 5: Keep learning and doing better
We will:
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- Use what we have learnt to make things better.
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- Measure if our services and services we fund are doing well.
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- Collect information on how get people to claim benefits. Find out what works and what does not work.
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- Learn from other services. This can help make the system better.
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- Understand that this strategy will keep changing as we learn more. Society changes all the time. The way we work needs to be flexible.
Contact
Email: Jillian.Gardner@gov.scot
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