Fairer Scotland action plan: progress report 2020

Social policy

The Scottish Government responded swiftly to the risk COVID-19 posed to those on low incomes, announcing a £350 million Communities Support package of support on 18 March and we have taken a person centred approach in our response to the pandemic. This package included over £120 million to tackle food insecurity, £80 million in awards to community and third sector organisations to take forward projects which support the wellbeing of people across Scotland and an additional £22 million to local authorities for the Scottish Welfare Fund.

In October we made a further £30 million available to local authorities over the winter period to tackle financial insecurity. This includes a £20 million flexible fund to tackle financial insecurity and over £10 million to continue the provision of Free School Meals across the Christmas, February and Easter Holidays for around 156,000 children. Local authorities can use the new flexible fund to top-up Scottish Welfare Fund and Discretionary Housing Payment allocations and to support low income people with household bills including food and fuel.

On 30 November we announced the £100 million Winter Plan for Social Protection which has been developed to mitigate social harms posed by the concurrent risks of COVID-19, winter cost of living increases and EU exit; as well as to promote equality and human rights. Key elements of the Plan include:

• £22 million for low income families, including a one-off £100 payment for children from low income households in receipt of Free School Meals to be paid by Christmas.
• £23.5 million to help vulnerable children through additional support for residential and care homes, social work, and the Children's Hearing system.
• £15 million for the Communities and Third Sector Recovery Programme to enhance capacity in the third sector and communities and enable more community and third sector organisations to be supported.
• £5.9 million to promote digital inclusion for older people, support social isolation and loneliness and to promote equality
• £7 million to help people who are struggling to pay fuel bills
• £5 million to help those at risk of homelessness find a settled home

The Plan also includes £15 million of flexible funding for local authorities entering COVID-19 protection level 4 - announced by the First Minister in November – which can be used to pay for food and essentials. This funding is in addition to the £15 million allocated to local authorities in July to provide support for food and essentials.

People on low incomes will be eligible to receive a new £500 grant if asked to self-isolate. Applications for the new Self Isolation Support Grant (SISG) opened on 12 October and will help those who would lose income if they needed to self-isolate, such as those unable to carry out their work from home.

This grant is for those who will face financial hardship due to being asked to self-isolate and initially targeted at people who are in receipt of Universal Credit or legacy benefits, with some discretion to make awards to others in financial hardship. From 7 December we have extended the grant to parents of children aged under 16 who need to take time off work because their child is told to self-isolate, and also to people who are eligible for Universal Credit, but have not claimed it – providing they fulfil all of the other criteria for the grant.

These payments are designed to help ensure people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their close contacts self-isolate for the required period to stop the onward spread of the virus.

In June this year we created the Social Renewal Advisory Board (the Board). Its role is to advise the Scottish Government on how to build a stronger, fairer and more equal Scotland for the post‑pandemic period. The Board aims to build on the shifts in policy and practice we saw in the immediate response to COVID-19 where, by working at pace and in partnership, we challenged traditional ways of working to deliver real change.

Proposals were developed by a series of expert discussion groups known as 'policy circles'. The circles are focusing on Age and Disability, Addressing Low Income, Community‑led Place Based Renewal, Cross Cutting Delivery, Financial Security, the Housing System, Access to Food, the Third Sector, and Communities and Volunteering.

Underpinning all the Board's work is a commitment to advancing equality and promoting and protecting human rights. COVID‑19 has intensified many pre‑existing inequalities, and it is crucial that the policies we are putting in place work for all of Scotland's people.

Initial recommendations from the Board's discussions are set out across the Programme for Government. The Board is now developing further proposals on social renewal and will set these out in full in an independent report in early 2021.

Fairer Scotland

To ensure that older people and low income families are receiving all the benefits they are entitled to and are not paying more than they need to for basic goods and services, known as the 'poverty premium', we launched the Money Talk Team income maximisation service in 2018. It is backed by investment of £3.3 million over two years and in its first 21 months of service delivery (November 2018 to July 2020), over 23,000 clients accessed the service and client financial gain of almost £20.7 million was recorded for 11,760 clients. This means on average each household is better off by almost £1,800. A total of 5,397 of the clients accessing the service identified themselves as aged over 60 and of those 2,634 clients had recorded financial gain of £4.27 million.

To help young people access the help and support they need, initial exploratory work commenced on advice provision for young people, but the impact of COVID-19 has slowed down this work while advice providers have had to quickly adapt to new ways of working. We will look to progress further as normal services begin to resume.

The Scottish Government has committed over £130 million to tackle food insecurity caused by the pandemic. Of this we invested £50.3 million to cover our nationally coordinated response for those who are clinically extremely vulnerable, known as the 'shielded' group. Funding to local authorities for people struggling to access food has encouraged a 'cash-first' (direct financial transfer) approach to ensure those who can get to the shops have the money they need to buy food and other essentials. Scotland is unique across the UK in taking this 'cash-first' approach to food insecurity, founded in principles of dignity and human rights. The food insecurity funding for local authorities has included over £37 million to continue the delivery of Free School Meal provision over school closures and holidays up to Easter 2021. This support is reaching 156,000 children and young people.

Due to COVID-19 we have not been able to introduce The Good Food Nation Bill this Parliamentary term. However Scottish Ministers have committed to work together to develop a new non-statutory statement on food policy, to build on recent experience of coronavirus response, and will consider rights, security, production and availability of food. This work is being led by the Ministerial Working Group on Food to ensure that the cross cutting approach that is needed to take forward key aspects of national policy is in place. This work is in the initial stages and further details will be available in due course.

Participatory budgeting (PB) gives communities a direct say in decisions on how public money is spent locally and our programme of support for this has given over a 120,000 people a say on how money is spent in their community. In September 2020, we established a National Strategic PB Group to provide strategic direction for PB in Scotland, particularly in light of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the opportunities to 'build back better' as part of the recovery.

Launched in October 2017 the 'Community Choices Framework Agreement' is a milestone in Scotland's PB journey giving communities more influence than ever in how public funding is spent in their community. We remain committed to that Agreement which sets the expectations that 1% of local authority budgets would be subject to PB by 2020/21, approximately £100 million. Much PB activity paused due to COVID-19 impacts and we have worked in partnership with COSLA and the National Strategic PB Group to agree that the framework will remain in place to celebrate those local authorities who can meet that target while offering flexibility to those who require more time.

On 30 July we published a report on an independent evaluation of asset transfer legislation. Asset transfer makes it easier for communities groups to take on public sector land and buildings, including ownership or lease of forests, parks, woodlands, sports and recreational facilities and community hubs. The report shows that activity is increasing, with 81 asset transfer request approved, the majority of these from local authorities.

Participation Requests also make it easier for communities to have their voice heard by contributing to the decision-making processes for service change or improvement in their local area. We commissioned researchers to carry out an independent evaluation of Participation Request legislation. The final report^[14], published in April 2020, shows that the legislation is working as it was intended and makes recommendations we will use to help inform our future policy support.

In addition, in September 2020 we refreshed the National Standards for Community Engagement to help public bodies engage communities for recovery and renewal following the COVID-19 pandemic and to make the most effective use of the resources we have by listening to people with lived experience of disadvantage and inequality to establish and act on their priorities.