Consultation on draft Welfare Funds (Scotland) Bill and options for challenging decisions made by local authorities on applications to the Scottish Welfare Fund

Responding To This Consultation Paper

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by 7 February 2014.

Please send your response to the consultation questionnaire with the completed Respondent Information Form, available separately on the Scottish Government website (see "Handling your Response" below) to:

SWFDraftBill-consultation@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or

Scottish Welfare Fund,
Area 1G - South,
Victoria Quay,
Edinburgh,
EH6 6QQ.

This consultation, and all other Scottish Government consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations.

The Scottish Government has an email alert system for consultations, http://register.scotland.gov.uk. This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new consultations (including web links). It complements, but in no way replaces SG distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SG consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form which forms part of the consultation questionnaire. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public in the Scottish Government Library. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SG Library on 0131 244 4552. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us reach a decision on the contents of the Welfare Funds (Scotland) Bill. We aim to issue a report on this consultation process by Spring 2014 if possible, and introduce the Welfare Funds (Scotland) Bill by June 2014. We plan to make draft regulations available around the same time.

Comments and complaints

Annex C gives more information on the Scottish Government consultation process and a list of the people that this consultation has been sent to is at Annex D. If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

Chris McGhee
Scottish Welfare Fund,
Area 1G-South,
Victoria Quay,
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ.

or,

E-mail: chris.mcghee@scotland.gsi.gov.uk