Child Disability Payment Amendment Regulations: draft equality impact assessment

Conclusion

• This EQIA process has identified that overall, the amendment regulations to the Disability Assistance for Children and Young People (Scotland) Regulations 2021 have potential to have a positive impact for children and young people in Scotland who share protected characteristics.
• The potential positive impacts identified include:
• the amendments relating to the effect of time spent in care homes and in legal detention will bring clarity to the rules on entitlement and consistency for young people and their families, regardless of which environment a young person becomes resident in;
• clarifying the policy intention regarding when the period Social Security Scotland has to complete a re-determination begins will bring more fairness to the appeal process. It also provides more certainty for children and their families about how long Social Security Scotland has to complete a re-determination;
• extending the scenarios where short-term assistance is payable and providing clarity around when it ends will remove ambiguity and enable people to feel more confident to challenge decisions and seek administrative justice;
• stopping payment rather than ending entitlement after a temporary absence from the CTA will minimise the potential need for children and young people to re-apply for CDP upon return to the CTA. This, in turn will reduce stress and anxiety for children, young people and their families or carers around having to start a new application;
• providing more clarity around the date CDP stops when an individual moves between Scotland and the rest of the UK will help mitigate the loss of income to households during moves; and
• ensuring individuals are not financially disadvantaged by the case transfer process.
• amending the age criteria will help ensure that young people aged 16 to 18 will not have a gap, or lose their entitlement to CDP, whilst waiting for their Adult Disability Payment application to be processed. This will help mitigate any drop in household income and alleviate some of the anxiety and challenges faced by many young people and their families during the transition from child to adult services;
• amending the date on which increase of entitlement takes effect will bring more fairness, as it will ensure that an individual who has reported their change of circumstance late would not see their entitlement change sooner than someone who reported timeously;

Authorisation

Name and job title of policy lead:

Jennifer Sinclair
Policy Lead
Social Security Policy Division

David Hilber
Case Transfer Policy Lead
Social Security Policy Division

Name and job title of Deputy Director or equivalent:

Ian Davidson
Deputy Director
Social Security Policy Division

Date this version authorised: