Scottish Carer's Assistance: consultation - easy read

Section 1: Scottish Carer's Assistance

Scottish Carer's Assistance will be provided by Social Security Scotland. This is the new Scottish benefits agency. We will work with carers to design it so it meets their needs.

Social Security Scotland has teams in local areas in Scotland. They are called Local Delivery service. These teams will offer face to face support. They will be able to answer questions about benefits and help fill forms. This can be in person, on the phone or by video call.

We want to make sure that carers using the service are told about other benefits and services. Carers have told us it would help to make links with other support for things like study, work, or when their caring role ends.

Question 1: How can Scottish Carer's Assistance services meet carers' needs?

Question 2: What support could Scottish Carer's Assistance link to?

Who will be able to get Scottish Carer's Assistance?

When we start paying Scottish Carer's Assistance, most of the rules will be the same as Carer's Allowance. This means carers will need to:

• be 16 or over
• be caring for 35 hours or more each week

• be caring for someone getting a disability benefit
• not be in full-time education

• not earn more than £128 a week from paid work. This is the amount for this year and may change in future.

Carers would not be able to get Scottish Carer's Assistance at the same time as some other benefits. This includes the State Pension. Scottish Carer's Assistance and State Pension are both benefits for people who are less able to work.

Rules about where carers are living

Scottish Carer's Assistance will mostly be paid to carers living in Scotland. The other rules about where carers live will mostly be the same as for Carer's Allowance.

Getting Carer's Allowance depends on how long you have been living in the United Kingdom. You need to have been living here for two of the past three years.

We know that some people think this is too long. If we decided to have a different rule from Carer's Allowance we would need to speak with the Department for Work and Pensions. We want to make sure carers still get the extra support they get in other benefits.

Question 3: Do you agree or disagree that carers need to have been living here for two of the past three years?

Agree / Disagree / Not sure

Please tell us more about your answer in the box below.

What happens when a carer is not happy with a decision?

If carers disagree with a decision on an application for Scottish Carer's Assistance, they can ask us to look at this decision again.

This can be done by a re-determination. A re-determination is when a carer asks us to look at a decision again. A new team will look at the carer's application.

Carers should have 42 days to ask for a re-determination. Social Security Scotland should have 56 days to make the new decision. These times are the same as for the Scottish disability benefits.

Carers may take longer than 42 days to ask for a re-determination if they have a good reason for taking longer.

The carer can then appeal if they do not agree with this new decision. An appeal is when a group of people called a Tribunal looks at all the information and makes a new decision.

Carers would have 31 days from getting a re-determination decision to apply for an appeal. They will also be able to ask for an appeal after 31 days if they have a good reason for doing so.

Question 4: Do you agree or disagree with the timescales for re-determinations and appeals?

Agree / Disagree / Not sure

Please tell us more about your answer in the box below.

When payments need to stop for a short time

We may need to stop a carer's payments of Scottish Carer's Assistance in some situations.

We would do this when:

• we have asked a carer for information and they have not given it

• someone is getting payments for a carer but they cannot get the payments any more

• we think that there is a risk of financial abuse.

If a carer does not agree with a decision to stop payments they would be able to ask us to look at this again. When payments start again we would make sure the carer got any missed payments.

Getting Scottish Carer's Assistance depends on the person you care for getting a disability benefit. At the moment, if disability benefit payments are stopped, payments to their carer stop too.

We are thinking about what should happen to a carer's Scottish Carer's Assistance payments when the disability benefits of the person they care for stop for a short time.

Question 5: Do you agree or disagree with our ideas about when payments of Scottish Carer's Assistance should be stopped for a short time?

Agree / Disagree / Not sure

Please tell us more about your answer in the box below.

Question 6: Please tell us what you think should happen to payments of Scottish Carer's Assistance when a cared for person's disability benefit is stop for a short time?

Changing Scottish Carer's Assistance payments to £0

Sometimes we will need to reduce the amount of Scottish Carer's Assistance to £0 per week.

Carers will get a Carer's Allowance payment of £0 if they are getting an overlapping benefit. This is when they are paid another benefit. This includes the State Pension.

We would also reduce Scottish Carer's Assistance awards to £0 for any week in which a carer earns too much money to get the benefit. This will stop them from being overpaid but would not end their award.

We also plan to set an award of Scottish Carer's Assistance to £0 for any week in which a cared for person's disability benefit is stopped or suspended.

This may be if the cared for person is in hospital for longer than 4 weeks.

When an award had been £0 for six months in a row, we would end the award. If carers disagreed with a decision to reduce their award to £0 they would be able to ask us to look at this decision again.

Question 7: Do you agree with our reasons for setting an award of Scottish Carer's Assistance to £0?

Agree / Disagree / Not sure

Please tell us more about your answer in the box below.

Support for carers who disagree with a decision

Short-term assistance is a new payment in the Scottish benefits system. We will give carers short-term assistance if they are asking for a decision be looked at again. This may be a decision to stop or reduce their payments.

We think that short-term assistance should not be paid when payments are reduced to £0 when:

• the carer is getting an overlapping benefit
• the carer is earning too much money to get the benefit
• the disability benefits of the person they care for are set to £0.

We also want to give support to carers when the person they care for is getting short-term assistance.

In most cases, we would not ask for any short-term assistance to be paid back. This would be the case even if a re-determination or appeal was not successful.

Question 8: Do you agree or disagree with these ideas?

Agree / Disagree / Not sure

Please tell us more about your answer in the box below.

Question 9: Please give us any other views you want to share on Scottish Carer's Assistance.