Minimum Income Guarantee: Experts by Experience Panel report

Principle six: transparency

The Minimum Income Guarantee should be delivered with transparency. This needs a governance system that demonstrates accountability and ensures cost effective delivery, financial sustainability and is communicated clearly to the public.

Rationale

This principle reflects that panel members feel the Minimum Income Guarantee should have an effective and accountable system of governance that includes the wider public, businesses and trade unions, those with lived experience, and experts in poverty and equality.

This principle also reflects that the Minimum Income Guarantee should prepare for wider risks and impacts as it is rolled out, including potential impact on the economy, public support, individual responsibility and accountability.

Considerations

• Clear communication to the public regarding their eligibility.
• Need to test the language around this; should we be using benefits, entitlements, eligibility or something else - what works and what resounds. Different people in the group working on this principle had different thoughts on language.
• Clear information on the delivery/impact of the Minimum Income Guarantee on an annual (regular basis) - ministerial statement.
• Need to be able to compare impact of current system to what a Minimum Income Guarantee gives us - collect clear disaggregated data.
• Needs to be in easy to understand language, being mindful of jargon/official language and in different formats to meet people's different communication needs (English not first language, neurodiversity etc).
• Need to clearly identify the benefits we expect to get from Minimum Income Guarantee (to individuals, economy, preventative spend etc) at the start and how we can measure these, so that this can be reported on transparently as well as identifying any negative impacts.

Communications

• Annual statement should be engaging and should be communicated in crystal clear (easy to understand language).
• Use testimonies of Minimum Income Guarantee users to show impact.

Support

29 members voted on the level of support for this principle. Overall supported by 96% of panel members of which:

• 72% (21 members) 'strongly support'
• 24% (7 members) 'support'
• and 3% (one member) 'strongly oppose'

Members were asked, "if you do not support principle six, please tell us what would be needed for you to support it". No members provided comments on how their support would be increased. As explained in the introduction, one member who disagrees with the idea of a Minimum Income Guarantee used this space to further emphasise their disagreement.