Employment Injury Assistance delivery - next steps: response to consultation

Case Transfer

Respondent Feedback

The consultation received one response from a current recipient of an IIS benefit and one from a family member of a current recipient. These individuals were most concerned about ensuring they continued to receive payments following the introduction of Employment Injury Assistance. Many organisations additionally called for current payments to be protected. Several organisations called for greater consideration to be given to future interactions with other benefits, such as the UK Government lump-sum payment schemes for asbestos-related conditions. These schemes have not been devolved and will continue to be administered by the UK Government.

Scottish Government Response

As outlined in our response to Question 1, the protection of current payments is a priority for the Scottish Government.

Moving people’s IIS awards to Employment Injury Assistance would be particularly arduous due to the age and clerical nature of the Scheme. The majority of information held about people in receipt of an Industrial Injury Scheme benefit is held in paper files in remote storage facilities. Many of these files are decades old. The physical transfer of up to 150,000 paper files would be required and the time and cost of this transfer would be significantly higher than for other benefits that have been devolved. For these reasons we do not intend to undertake case transfer in the current Parliament. We consider prioritising fundamental reform of the benefit a better use of resources than the risky process of moving peoples’ awards to a like-for-like benefit.

We are aware of the need to consider implications of case transfer and of any reform on entitlement for lump-sum payments for asbestos related lung conditions, which are reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government has taken every step possible throughout the devolution of social security payments, including through the delivery of its disability assistance, to ensure everyone who undergoes case transfer maintains their entitlement to reserved payments. We have worked closely with the UK Government to date and will continue to do so to protect peoples’ entitlement to reserved payments that interact with Employment Injury Assistance.

Furthermore, we will invite some respondents who raised concerns about case transfer and interaction with reserved lump-sum payments to be part of the Employment Injury Assistance Steering Group.