The Disability Assistance (Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance) Regulations 2025: islands communities impact assessment

2. Executive Summary

This Island Communities Impact Assessment has considered the potential effects of the Disability Assistance (Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 and how they impact on people living in island communities, as presented below in the Key Findings section.

The findings here are based on desk research, engagement with and feedback from disabled people with lived experience of the current social security system,^[3] and the Consultation on Disability Assistance.^[4] The consultation ran until 28 May 2019. The consultation received 262 responses from individuals and stakeholder organisations. We have taken a number of actions as a result of these responses including:

• Further in-depth analysis of the impact of proposed changes to the application of the eligibility criteria. This can be found in the related Equalities Impact Assessment, which specifically considers potential impacts on people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, such as women, older people, racial minorities and people with one or more mental, physical or learning disabilities.
• The Scottish Government is extending the Island Communities Impact Assessment by considering rurality and remoteness in the same spirit of the Act to gauge evidence as to whether the policy and regulations will impact rural/remote communities differently to other communities.

Scottish Ministers have concluded that there are unlikely to be any unique impacts on remote and island communities as a result of the provisions in these regulations, nor will there be a specific financial impact for island communities in isolation resulting from the provisions. The positive impacts of Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance that have been identified are expected to have a similar impact on remote and island communities as with the rest of Scotland.