Employment Injury Assistance (EIA) delivery – next steps: consultation analysis

Introduction

Background

The Industrial Injuries Scheme (IIS) was introduced in 1948 to provide social security support to workers, typically from heavy, historically state-owned, industries who became disabled or developed a long-term health condition as a result of their employment. Although some minor statutory changes have been made since, the structure and administration of the IIS has undergone little reform in 76 years. There are currently around 24,000 recipients of an IIS benefit in Scotland, of which around 21,000 are related to the IIS’s main benefit: Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB). Since April 2020, the Scottish Government has been responsible for IIS in Scotland. IIS provides financial support to people who have become disabled or have developed a long-term health condition as a result of their employment. IIS is currently being delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the Scottish Government’s behalf under an agency agreement. That agreement, which currently runs to the end of March 2026, ensures people continue to receive the payments they are entitled to without any disruption.

The Scottish Government has committed to replacing the UK Government's IIS with a new benefit called EIA which is to be delivered by Social Security Scotland. There is not currently a date planned for delivery of EIA. Delivery has taken longer than initially planned due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the prioritisation of other forms of assistance such as Scottish Child Payment and Adult Disability Payment.

The Consultation

The Scottish Government ran a public consultation to gather feedback on immediate next steps for EIA The consultation document provided an overview of the benefits that make up the IIS and the unique complexities and challenges of replacing it with EIA.

The consultation ran for 8 weeks, between 30 April 2024 and 25 June 2024, and asked 3 questions:

• 2 questions were closed (i.e. invited agree/disagree/don’t know responses) but also invited a free text response on reasoning; and
• 1 question was completely open (i.e. invited only a free text response)

In addition to the online consultation, the Scottish Government invited organisations to attend three stakeholder engagement events in order to maximise opportunities for feedback about the paper. These events were attended by 7 trade unions, 2 Disabled People’s Organisations, 2 asbestos organisations, an equality organisation and one personal injury Solicitors.

A total of twenty-eight consultation responses were received – ten from individuals and eighteen from organisations. Alongside the individuals who responded, there were 9 trade unions, 2 Disabled People’s Organisations, 3 third sector groups/charities, 2 personal injury law organisations and 2 local authorities.

Methodology

The analysis and reporting of responses were carried out by the Scottish Government. Responses to the closed questions submitted through Citizen Space were quantified in order to illustrate the range of opinions held by respondents. Any non-Citizen Space responses sent directly to the mailbox were logged then uploaded onto Citizen Space.

Each response was manually examined to identify the range of themes and issues discussed. Recurring themes that emerged throughout the consultation were recorded, and verbatim quotes were extracted in some cases to illustrate findings. Where there was a strong consensus or where there were conflicting views, more than one quote was used to provide further illustration. Only extracts where the respondent consented for their response to be published were used. It was not possible to detail every response in the findings, however, published responses can be read on the consultation website^[2].

Three of the twelve organisations who attended the consultation events did not submit a written response. As the discussions at the consultation events focused on issues with the current scheme and priorities for reform, these three organisations did not give answers to the consultation questions and are not included in the answer statistics. They did, however, share their views on a number of the issues discussed in this analysis and these views, with reference to the consultation events, have been included in the thematic analysis when considering these wider points.

Analysis

This analysis begins by looking at quantitative responses to the three consultation questions and qualitative free text answers supporting these responses. Many respondents used their consultation responses as an opportunity to discuss areas out with the consultation questions, these are part of a thematic analysis that follows the question analysis.

A number of acronyms are used throughout this analysis. This document will use IIS when referring to the Industrial Injuries Scheme as a whole and IIDB when referring to the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, the main benefit within the scheme. DWP refers to the Department of Work and Pensions and EIA refers to Employment Injury Assistance, the benefit that will replace IIS in Scotland.

Qualitative analysis does not permit the quantification of results. However, to aid the interpretation of findings, the following terms have been used to convey the most to least common themes that emerged from the responses. As a guide, where reference is made in the report to ‘some’ respondents, this relates to five or less respondents. The term ‘several’ refers to more than five, but less than ten. The term ‘many’ refers to more than ten but less than twenty. Any views that were expressed by large numbers of respondents (i.e. twenty or more) are highlighted throughout. Any views expressed by one respondent are similarly highlighted throughout.