Draft Disability Assistance (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023: draft child rights and wellbeing impact assessment

Conclusion

78. The initial development of Child and Adult Disability Payment and how they will continue to be delivered has been informed by engagement with a range of stakeholders and people with lived experience of the current benefit system. The policy intent of both Child and Adult Disability Payment is to provide payments to contribute to the additional care and mobility costs resulting from a disability or long term condition. The provision of this assistance is intended to enable people to mitigate these costs, and to mitigate societal barriers to ensure they are able to live a life of their own choosing. The amendments aim to bolster these commitments to ensure that there is no doubt regarding current policy and provisions and to ensure that children and young people are treated with dignity, fairness and respect throughout their Social Security Scotland journey.

79. Based on the evidence gathered, previous consultative engagement with users and stakeholders, and assessment of the demographic makeup of current Child Disability Payment recipients, the Scottish Government does not consider that these amendments infringes upon the rights of the child as set out in the articles of the UNCRC. The assessed impacts of the policy make a positive contribution to the rights and wellbeing of young people who are eligible to receive Child or Adult Disability Payment as set out in the assessment of the policy against UNCRC articles outlined above.

80. The Scottish Government has assessed these amendments against the indicators of wellbeing as set out by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and has concluded that the policy is likely to have a positive impact against each of the indicators, for young people who meet the eligibility rules.

Monitoring and Review

81. 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 charter.

82. We will continue to engage with relevant stakeholders and key organisations which will provide the Scottish Government with an opportunity to monitor the impact of the policy. We will also be sharing these amendments with SCoSS for their scrutiny on 24 February 2023.

83. The Communities Analysis Division within the Scottish Government will also run a comprehensive evaluation programme to consider the impact of the changes to disability assistance in Scotland including considering the transition for those moving from Child Disability Payment to Adult Disability Payment which we have further improved by these amendments.