Social security - benefit take-up strategy: easy read - October 2021

Benefit Take-up Strategy: October 2021 - Easy Read Version

Introduction

This Strategy says how the Scottish Government will help more people to claim Scottish benefits. A strategy is a plan.

This will help Scotland to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

We will work with organisations and people who use the benefit system.

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?

We will give more people advice. This includes at doctor's surgeries and in schools.

Social Security Scotland will put staff in all council areas.

We will work with organisations to find out what works best.

We will make more helpful resources.

We will connect services.

We will work with vulnerable people to understand why they are not claiming benefits.

We will encourage a positive attitude about benefits.

This Strategy is based on five principles. Principles are the way we will work.

Principle 1: Put people first

We will:

• Find out how best to support people in the right place.

• Have the right information at the right time.

• Make it easier to access benefits. Make the system straightforward.

• 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.

• Work with the people who are using the system.

• Use person-centred planning.

• Pay attention to all needs. This will stop inequalities when using the system.

Principle 2: Communicate and engage with people

We will:

• Communicate and engage to meet people's needs.

• Work with other organisations to reach more people.

• Use different ways to communicate to suit everyone's needs. This will mean we get the right information to people.

• 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.

• Gather more information and use what we learn so the system is always getting better.

Principle 3: Bring services to people

We will:

• Get information to the right people.

• Make sure that Social Security Scotland supports local communities.

• Work with other organisations to understand the needs of clients. We can work to spread our messages.

• Spend money on services so people can access advice.

Principle 4: Systems to work together

We will:

• Work together to make the best services.

• Work with other services to increase people's income.

• Listen to people with experience of the system.

• Share examples of good work.

Principle 5: Keep learning and doing better

We will:

• Use what we have learnt to make things better.

• Measure if our services and services we fund are doing well.

• Collect information on how get people to claim benefits. Find out what works and what does not work.

• Learn from other services. This can help make the system better.

• Understand that this strategy will keep changing as we learn more. Society changes all the time. The way we work needs to be flexible.