Disability and Carers Benefits Expert Advisory Group: review

3. Meeting the purpose and remit

According to the information received from the secretariat, the Group submitted eight pieces of written advice over the period covered by this report. Four of these outputs were triggered by requests from the Scottish Government, one was suggested but not formally requested by the Scottish Government, and the remaining pieces of advice were produced proactively by the Group. Although exact dates when work was commenced and was completed are not available for some pieces of advice, it appears that it took the Group between three to five months to produce a written response, either in full, or as an indication that further advice was to follow pending discussions or engagement. In addition to this advice, which is summarised in the table below, the Group produced further advice more recently which could not be included in this review^[1].

DACBEAG advice produced in the period covered in this report

Advice title	Prompt	Advice requested/Work commenced	Advice submitted to the Scottish Government	Ministerial response
Social Security Bill	Suggested but not formally requested by Scottish Government	May 2017	17 August 2017	None issued
Independent scrutiny in social security	Requested by Scottish Government	30 August 2017	12 Dec 2017	24 January 2018
Stakeholder engagement and equalities, Social Security Charter and Social Security Agency	Proactive	Early December 2017	January 2018	January 2018
Assessments	Requested by Scottish Government	Early February 2018	11 July 2018	27 July 2018
Carer's Allowance Supplement	Requested by Scottish Government	February 2018	1 Jun 2018	11 June 2018
Universal Credit Split Payments	Requested by Scottish Government	9 March 2018	8 June 2018	21 June 2018
Social Security Charter	Proactive	March 2018	8 June 2018	25 June 2018
Equalities analysis	Proactive	May 2018	6 July 2018	29 Aug 2018

The remainder of this section will discuss how well this advice is aligned with the remit of the Group. Where the advice seems not to be directly related to the remit of the Group as it deals with disability and carer benefits, it is worth keeping in mind that advice on the social security system in general does impact on carers and disabled people, particularly given the proportion of the devolved benefits which are to do with these two areas.

3.1. Scope of advice

The remit of DACBEAG is detailed in the Terms of Reference included in Annex 1 of this report. The remit of the Group is to provide advice to Ministers on benefits 'that seek to help to meet some of the additional costs of a disability, those that provide financial support for people injured or affected by "prescribed diseases" in the course of their work, and carers' benefits.' The benefits that currently meet this definition and that are mentioned in Terms of Reference are:

• Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
• Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
• Attendance Allowance (AA)
• Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA)
• Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB)
• Carers Allowance (CA)

The Terms of Reference further state that the Group should specifically advise on key areas for reform, including, but not limited to:

• reform of the assessment of disability and carer benefits (from application to final decision and including data and evidence)
• award periods, automatic awards and lifetime awards
• eligibility criteria for disability and carer benefits
• appeals
• accessibility
• take up of benefits
• Agency delivery and operation

The fifth piece of advice in Table 1 ('Social Security Bill'), which comes in a form of a 4-page letter to the Minister of Social Security, talks about issues that are generic to social security system and not specific to disability benefits. It covers the issues of balance between primary and secondary legislation, right to cash or alternative assistance, recovery of overpaid assistance and operational culture. Although these issues are relevant to Scotland's social security system as a whole and disability benefits account for a large share of what will be delivered, they are not specific to disability and carer benefits which are explicitly in the remit of the Group.

The second piece of advice listed in Table 1 ('Independent scrutiny in social security') was a substantial piece of work submitted within a relatively short time frame. It comes in a form of an 18-page report in response to a request from Ministers 'to provide advice and recommendations on scrutiny of the Scottish social security system'. This request refers to social security in general and as such is relevant but not directly related to the remit of the Group. The same can be said about the advice itself. Although one chapter of the report is concerned with the scrutiny of employment injury assistance regulations thus potentially having implications for the IIDB, the rest of the document talks about scrutiny in relation to the social security system in general.

The third piece of advice in Table 1 ('Stakeholder engagement and equalities, Social Security Charter and Social Security Agency'), which comes in a form of a 3-page letter to the Minister of Social Security, is a brief summary of a discussion the Group had on three main issues: stakeholder engagement and equalities, Social Security Charter, and Social Security Agency.

• With regard to the first of these three issues, the letter talks briefly about the importance of engaging with people with lived experience of the current and future social security system and about the importance of 'the application of equality impact analysis processes of each new devolved benefit'. The stakeholder engagement is thus covered briefly and in generic terms in relation to social security system and as such is potentially relevant but not directly related to the remit. The part on equality analysis could be seen as directly related to the remit of the Group because it refers to devolved benefits and all benefits within the remit of the Group are devolved benefits. On the other hand, however, some devolved benefits are not within the remit of the Group and therefore it could be argued that the advice is broad and is not explicitly related to disability and carers benefits which are the focus of the remit of the Group.
• With regard to the part of the letter related to Social Security Charter, it is simply explained that the Group agreed to set up a workstream to work on this issue.
• With regard to the part of the letter related to Social Security Agency, the Group makes practical recommendations on recruitment of new staff. In particular, it emphasises the importance of external recruitment as a tool for ensuring that that Agency has a desired operating culture and a diverse workforce. This is an example of where advice on the general effectiveness of the Agency was offered by the group, which while it may have an impact on the carers and people with disabilities, was not specific to operations in that area.

The fourth piece of advice in Table 1 ('Assessment Workstream') comes in a form of an 8-page letter to Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People. This advice is directly related to the remit of the Group. The advice focuses on the issues of automatic entitlement, best sources of evidence for assessment, award durations and the delivery body for assessments. Therefore, it is aligned to the 'award periods, automatic awards and lifetime awards' element in the remit. It also refers to three specific benefits which are within the remit of the Group - Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance.

The fifth piece of advice in Table 1 ('Carer's Allowance Supplement') comes in a form of a two-page advice note. This advice is directly related to the remit of the Group because Carer's Allowance is one of the benefits listed in the Group's remit. Moreover, the advice focused on three particular issues related to the delivery of this benefit by Social Security Scotland: data sharing, communication (e.g. guidance to claimants), and process for challenge and complaint. In that sense, the advice was in line with some of the specific aspects of the remit listed in the bullet points above, such as: 'Agency delivery and operation', 'appeals', and perhaps 'accessibility' as well as 'take up of benefits'.

The sixth piece of written advice in Table 1 ('Universal Credit Split Payments') comes in a form of a 1-page letter to the Minister of Social Security. Although this advice is concerned with an issue that is relevant to experience of people with disabilities, Universal Credit is not specifically in the Group's remit.

With regard to the seventh piece of advice in Table 1 ('Social Security Charter'), this comes in a form of a three-page letter addressed to the Minister of Social Security which explains the proposed involvement of the Group in the Charter development and gives initial views of the Group on the Charter. Interviews with officials indicated that much of the advice on the Charter was communicated verbally or via e-mail and thus is not included in the advice reviewed for this report. Again, this was an example of work on general effectiveness, which while it might impact on carers and disabled people, was not limited to that area.

Finally, with regard to the last piece of advice in Table 1 ('Equalities analysis'), this comes in a form of a 3-page letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People which focuses on the issue of data collection and analysis with regard to benefit take up and impact by different equality groups. The advice argues that adequate data collection and analysis process is a prerequisite for increasing take-up of benefits and in that sense this advice could be seen as directly related to the remit of the Group which explicitly mentions take-up of benefits as one of the areas the Group should advise on. However, this particular piece of advice does not refer explicitly to any of the benefits listed in the remit of the Group and does focus on disabled people (or carers) specifically as an equality group.

All in all, the summaries of the written pieces of advice offered above suggest that some pieces of advice were directly related to the remit of the Group whereas others were relevant to disability benefits or to experiences of people with disabilities more broadly but were not directly related to the remit of the Group. This seems to apply more or less equally to the advice that was requested by the Scottish Government and the advice that the Group decided to work on proactively.

Scottish Government officials acknowledged that some of the advice the Group had been asked to provide was not within their remit. There was a recognition that the Scottish Government relied on the Group to provide ad-hoc advice that it needed in areas beyond the Group's remit. Despite this advice being valuable, it was recognised that in the future the Government may need to ensure that its requests for advice are better aligned with the remit of the Group.

The majority of the Group members, who responded to the survey, agreed (nine respondents) or strongly agreed (two respondents) that requests for advice made by the Scottish Government had been well aligned with the remit of the Group. However, there were five respondents who felt unsure about such alignment.

There may also be differences in how remit and purpose are interpreted by different members of the Group. On the surface, Group members may seem to have a good understanding of the purpose and remit of the Group. For example, Survey respondents were presented with a survey question stating in full the purpose and remit of the Group and asked them to assess their understanding of this prior to filling out the survey. Out of sixteen people who responded to this question, eight respondents said that they understood the stated purpose of the Group very strongly and seven respondents said that they understood it strongly. Only one respondent expressed a weak understanding of the stated purpose of the Group.

However, qualitative survey and interview data suggest that there may be some nuanced discrepancies in what exactly members think falls within the remit and purpose of the Group. For example, one interviewee expressed an opinion that some of the asks for advice by the Scottish Government were not aligned with the remit of the group because they focused chiefly on the operational details whereas that respondent believed that the purpose of the Group was to provide strategic advice in terms of direction for policy development with only a high-level consideration for the delivery aspects in order to ensure that advice was realistic. Another member reported being 'not sure if it [the Group] constituted "expert advice" in terms of reform rather the functional aspects of delivering on the means and payments in play', adding that there was 'a split in the membership from the "biggest" thinking to the operational thinking' and that the Group was 'a jumble of both'.

Commenting on this, another member suggested that the Group may want to check whether operational advice - understood as advice on implementation and delivery of policies - is indeed within the remit of the Group given the fact that Social Security Agency would now be dealing with implementation and delivery aspects but the remit of the Group was to provide advice to the Ministers, not the Agency. This indicates that members may have different expectations and understanding of what type of expert advice falls within the remit of the Group and that these discrepancies may be exacerbated by the uncertainties posed by the changing landscape of social security in Scotland. These uncertainties, voiced by several Group members, are conveyed in one illustrative quote below:

'Given that we've got the Scrutiny Commission coming in January, we now have the advisory body for the Agency - that says to me that the role the Group has to play should change. The role has to become more clearly defined and specific. We need to be very clear about how we can add value. We have to keep asking ourselves a question where is our space in this?'

Another example of potential discrepancy in the detailed understanding of the remit among Group members can be seen in relation to the issue of affordability of the advice that is given. There was a view among the Group members that insufficient consideration was given to what was affordable. Some members contended that the Group should take into account financial implications of its advice, at least at the high level to ensure that advice that cannot be implemented is not produced. Conversely, there was a view that the question of affordability was not within the remit of the Group and that it should be left to the Government. Interviews with a larger number of DACBEAG members would need to be conducted to explore the prevalence of such views but the available data highlights a possibility that there may be different interpretations of the remit and purpose of the Group among members.

3.2. Development of advice

Terms of Reference also state the following additional three points in relation to DACBEAG's remit, in particular how it develops its advice:

• Use evidence from a number of sources to provide recommendations and guidance to Scottish Ministers on specific policy options being developed by the Scottish Government on the benefits within scope, including options for the existing benefits when powers over them are transferred to the Scottish Parliament, and options that would be developed and implemented after the safe and secure transfer of the benefits.
• Develop a Group workplan and order of priority for the development of advice and recommendations, taking into account the Scottish Government's programme plan for Social Security.
• Fulfil their remit by engaging with separate workstreams as appropriate, including the Experience Panels, Collaboratives and existing reference groups. Work undertaken may make use of Scottish Government analysis in the first instance, and take a view on the extent to which independent analysis is commissioned.

The issue of evidence base is discussed in more detail in chapter 4.3. of this report. That chapter explains that although the Group does draw on various sources of evidence, these could be expanded.

With regard to the second of the three points above, interview data indicated that the Group has a workplan and order of priority for the development of advice and recommendation that it updates regularly and adheres to. However, these updates are not necessarily uploaded online or shared with officials. It was also suggested that work could be better prioritised if information sharing between the Government and the Group continues to improve. This is discussed in chapter 5.4.2.

Finally, with regard to the third point, in addition to the relevant excerpt above, the Terms of Reference specify further that:

• The Group will be able to commission and draw on the work of Collaboratives drawn from the broad areas of Users, Practitioners and Deliverers. It is envisaged that the Group will engage proactively with the Collaboratives, and that the Collaboratives will report directly to the Group on specific issues. Alongside this, officials can provide a conduit for interaction and information flow between the Group, Collaboratives and existing representative groups as needed.

Data suggests that the Group's advice had drawn from the results of engagement with Experience Panels and Collaboratives in many cases. The Group made use of Scottish Government work around Experience Panels and it also proactively engaged with Practitioners and Delivers Collaboratives through workshops. There was no indication in the data that the Group commissioned independent analysis but the remit does not formally require the Group to do so as it only states that the Group would 'take a view on the extent to which independent analysis is commissioned' and that the 'will be able to commission and draw on the work of Collaboratives'. In that sense, the Group was fulfilling its remit. However, the view in the Government was that more could be done in terms of proactive engagement and commissioning work with Collaboratives.