Best Start Grant: Scottish Government response to the consultation

Implementation of the Best Start Grant

8. In keeping with good practice, the BSG will be implemented in stages, ensuring that we have a firm foundation before we move on to the next stage. The first payments of the Pregnancy and Baby Payment will be before Christmas 2018 and the Early Learning and School Age Payments will be introduced by Summer 2019.

9. The Scottish Fiscal Commission ( SFC) is responsible for producing independent forecasts of devolved social security expenditure. For BSG Pregnancy and Baby payment, the SFC will publish forecasts alongside the laying of the BSG regulations.

10. Based on assumptions from the SFC model, in the first full year of running 2018‑19, we estimate that there will be 12,500 BSG Pregnancy and Baby payments with a total cost of £5.5m. Once the Early Learning and School payments are added, we estimate that the total number of payments annually will be in the region of 39,000 at a cost of £12.1m, based on 2019-20 figures.

11. Alongside policy development, work has also been progressing on the design of Social Security Scotland. This will be headquartered in Dundee but will have a further site of similar size in Glasgow. The aim is to recruit a diverse workforce that represents our society and the people who will use our service.

12. The BSG service design team is now in the final stages of developing the business processes that will allow clients to access and receive the BSG. We have used an 'Agile' approach to service design, which means that we have continually tested evolving designs with prospective clients to make the application process as user-friendly as possible. Insights gained from this research include how we can make the language used in the application form easy to understand and how we can format the application form so that it meets the needs of people who have impairments. Once BSG payments are being made, we will continue to make improvements based on feedback from people who use the service.

13. Administration of BSG and BSF(currently Healthy Start Vouchers ( HSV)) will be combined. This will mean that if, for example, a mother applies for BSF for one child and tells us on the application form about another child who meets the criterion for a BSG payment, we will be able to assess eligibility for both at the same time.

14. We are also looking at how we can make the application process as streamlined as possible when we already have information about an applicant in the system from a previous application, or can seek this electronically. The principle is that we should place the minimum evidence requirements on clients to reduce any barriers to application.