Self-Isolation Support Grant: equality impact assessment

Grant Overview

Name of Grant:

Self-Isolation Support Grant (SISG)

Policy Lead

Carolyn Armstrong

Directorate: Division: Team

Directorate for Economic Development: Business Support Policy & Governance Division: Income Support & Business Support Team

New policy / legislation

Creation of new policy, followed by several policy iterations to address the impacts of Covid-19. The establishment of a Covid-19 Grant, Self-Isolation Support Grant (SISG) followed by several grant eligibility iterations to address impacts of Covid-19 and associated inequalities. This review was prompted by the policy change from 1 May 2022 reducing the value of the grant from £500 to £225.

Legislative Power

The SISG sits inside the Scottish Welfare Fund (“SWF”). The SWF is a national scheme, underpinned by law, the Welfare Funds (Scotland) Act 2015 (“the Act”) ^{[1] [2]} and delivered on behalf of the Scottish Government by all 32 local authorities. The SWF is the legislative and delivery mechanism for SISG in the form of Crisis Grants. It aims to provide a safety net to people on low incomes by the provision of Crisis Grants and Community Care Grants.

The Act places a statutory responsibility on each local authority to maintain a Welfare Fund.^[3] The Act also gives powers to Scottish Ministers to make regulations^[4] and publish guidance,^[5] setting out how these funds should be administered. The Welfare Funds (Scotland) Regulations 2016 (“the Regulations”) and this guidance were subject to public consultation (between 27 May 2015 and 21 August 2015). The guidance is reviewed annually and is issued by Scottish Ministers under Section 6 of the Act.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been necessary to amend eligibility for the SISG on different occasions. Therefore, the SWF guidance^[6] is maintained on an on-going basis and is updated and shared with local authorities as and when changes have been required.

Grant Overview

The Scottish Government originally committed to providing a SISG of £500 to workers who earned less than the Real Living Wage or were in receipt of a low income benefit, and who would experience reduced earnings as a result of them, their child or the person they are caring for being required to self-isolate, or staying at home, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

These grants help to support people who would otherwise struggle to be able to afford to comply with the requirement to self-isolate or follow advice to stay at home. It provides them with the financial support they need to meet their basic needs during the period in which they are unable to work (see section 10 for changes from 1 May 2022 when the grant changed to a one-off payment of £225 to cover the SG Health Policy advice to stay at home i.e. the requirement to self-isolate was removed and was replaced with advice to ‘stay at home’).