Best Start Grant: children's rights and wellbeing impact assessment

Scope of the CRWIA

The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 ^[10] (the Social Security Act) was brought forward as a result of changes to the devolution settlement enacted in the Scotland Act 2016.

Section 32 ^[11] and Schedule 6 ^[12] of the Act make provision for Early Years Assistance and require that Scottish Ministers make regulations to set out eligibility criteria, responsibility for a child who will qualify and the value of payments. The BSG will be a form of early years assistance, intended to support lower income families with children by offering financial support at key transition points in early years, intended to improve children's wellbeing and life chances.

The regulations this CRWIA relate to are for the BSG pregnancy and baby payment only but this CRWIA relates to all 3 BSG payments once fully implemented:

• pregnancy and baby;
• early learning; and
• school age payments.

They include provision for eligibility, including residence, what assistance is available, the value of the payments and when to apply. The regulations also include provision for timescales for the processing of redeterminations and certain issues of process relating to application dates.