Carer Support Payment: fairer Scotland duty assessment - summary

Monitoring and review

Following launch of Scottish Carer’s Assistance, an annual client survey is planned to monitor how the new benefit is working in practice, to identify any unintended consequences at an early stage, and to gauge any requirement for continuous improvement. The Scottish Government will also continue to ensure that carer voices and experiences are reflected in policy development by continuing to work alongside both the Experience Panels members and the Carer Benefits Advisory Group to monitor any arising issues raised by either group or in any Ministerial correspondence. This will be a continuous improvement process and where any unintended consequences are identified, steps will be taken to rectify them as early as possible.

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 the evaluating earlier devolved benefits. 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.

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.