Minimum Income Guarantee: Experts by Experience Panel report

Background

A Minimum Income Guarantee is an assurance that no one will fall below a set income level that would allow them to live a dignified life. It can be met through a combination of fair and accessible paid work, high quality services that reduce household costs and adequate social security. This is innovative concept with the potential to deliver transformational and lasting change by providing everyone in Scotland with a minimum acceptable standard of living. See Appendix 3 for more detail on a Minimum Income Guarantee.

Following calls for the development of a Minimum Income Guarantee from the Social Renewal Advisory Board report "If not now, when?" and the IPPR paper "Securing a Living Income in Scotland; Towards a Minimum Income Guarantee", The Scottish Government's Programme for Government 2021-22, A Fairer Greener Scotland, set out the Scottish Government's commitment to delivering a Minimum Income Guarantee longer-term, this was also restated in the 2023 Programme for Government.

The Scottish Government established a Steering Group with the overall purpose of defining a Minimum Income Guarantee for Scotland and identifying actions to support the implementation. The Steering Group comprises of a cross-party Strategy Group and an independent Expert Group from across the third sector, industry, and academia. The Expert Group identified that to design a policy that effectively tackles inequality and financial insecurity, the process would need to include diverse voices and lived experience into their work. Therefore, the Experts by Experience Panel was convened by Involve in Summer 2022 after a competitive tender process.

The Panel brought together an original group of 30 members of the Scottish public with lived experience of financial insecurity. The overall aim of the Experts by Experience Panel has been to advise and inform the work of the Expert Group by reviewing information, discussing as a group and forming perspectives and input based on the information provided and their own lived experience.

The Expert Group, with the support of the Expert by Experience Panel, continue to deliberate on the design of a Minimum Income Guarantee and have begun identifying steps towards this goal which includes recommending reform to the cost of essentials and provision of services; the world of work; and social security. In March 2023, the Expert Group published their interim report which outlines the key principles that underpin a Minimum Income Guarantee and ambition for the policy as it is developed. The Expert Group are currently working towards a final report which will be published later this year – embedding the findings from this report and using the Expert by Experience Panel's principles as a guide to decision making.