Independent Review of Adult Disability Payment: call for evidence

Foreword

This call for evidence is being hosted on behalf of Edel Harris OBE in her role as Chair of the Independent Review of Adult Disability Payment.

This call for evidence is primarily intended for organisations, although anyone can respond. A separate consultation that is primarily intended for people with lived and living experience of accessing – or trying to access – Adult Disability Payment is also available. If you are an individual with lived experience of disability or Adult Disability Payment, you may wish to respond to the consultation instead.

I am delighted and privileged to have been asked by the Scottish Government to Chair the Independent Review of Adult Disability Payment. The Scottish Government has asked me to consider how to ensure that Adult Disability Payment meets the needs of disabled people, terminally ill people, and people living with long term mental and physical health conditions, both now and in the future.

I am committed to the Independent Review being driven by evidence and with the input of disabled people. That includes thinking not only about what works well but also about where there is scope for improvement.

The review is a broad collaborative process and there will be many opportunities for feeding in your views during its course. This particular call for evidence is designed to gather that evidence on several key topic areas.

Since taking up my appointment, I have focused on building a thorough understanding of Adult Disability Payment. I continue to meet with people and organisations with experience of how Adult Disability Payment works and some of the questions in this call for evidence have come from those discussions.

I also want to assure you that once the call for evidence is complete, there will still be opportunities for you to take part in the Independent Review.

The Independent Review will report back to the Scottish Government by July 2025.

I look forward to receiving your submissions and thank you for taking the time to respond to the call for evidence.

Edel Harris OBE

Chair of the Independent Review of Adult Disability Payment