Carer Support Payment: equality impact assessment

Monitoring and review

Following launch of Carer Support Payment, an annual client survey is planned to monitor how the new benefit is working in practice, to identify and respond to any unintended consequences at an early stage, and to gauge any requirement for continuous improvement. We will also continue to ensure that carer voices and experiences are reflected in policy development by continuing to work alongside both the Experience/Client^[93] Panels members and the Carer Benefits Advisory Group. We will monitor any arising issues raised through these channels or in any Ministerial correspondence.

Programmes of policy impact evaluation exist to support the devolution of benefits to Scotland. This is the systematic assessment of a benefit's design, implementation and outcomes. Our monitoring and evaluation of Carer Support Payment will continue this commitment, drawing on lessons we have learned from evaluating benefits already devolved. The final design of the Carer Support Payment policy evaluation will aim to capture both key policy changes from launch as well as longer-term reform and will take into consideration the views and experiences of stakeholder organisations in developing this plan.

Policy evaluation plays an important role in supporting our obligations under equalities legislation, both by assessing how the impact varies by equality group, and how this and implementation of policy accord with a benefit's Equality Impact Assessment. Management information, including equalities data, is a key component of policy evaluation. In line with our practice across all of our benefits, we collect equality information covering age, sex, disability, gender reassignment, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. Where gaps exist in our equalities information for clients who have transferred from DWP, we are committed to addressing this.

The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 places a duty on the Scottish Ministers to report annually to the Scottish Parliament on the performance of the Scottish Social Security system during the previous financial year. The report is to describe what the Scottish Ministers have done in that year to meet the expectations on them set out in the Social Security Charter.

The Scottish Government has established the independent Scottish Commission on Social Security (SCoSS), an advisory non-departmental public body set up to provide independent scrutiny of the Scottish social security system (including benefit regulations) and hold Scottish Ministers to account.