Self-Isolation Support Grant: equality impact assessment

Stakeholder Engagement

There are many organisations representing people who are disproportionately affected and defined as having protected characteristics. The SISG EQIA is looking at the details of eligibility for the grant itself.

When the SISG was being established, there was limited opportunity to engage individually with these groups due to the urgency of the situation. Scottish Government officials had rapid and focused engagement with experienced Welfare Fund practitioners in late 2020 and are aware that the principles of holistic service provision and inclusive communication underpin the SWF.

Initially, a great deal of our stakeholder engagement came via insight into the grant from the volumes of correspondence we received from members of the public directly or via their MP or MSP. From this wealth of information, we could identify particular issues that were occurring and needed to be addressed. For example, when the grant was first launched, we received large amounts of correspondence from parents/guardians who had to self-isolate, but were then ineligible for the grant, if the child they cared for had to be off school due to an outbreak in their class. As the grant developed, we had ongoing communication with local authority representatives and received invaluable feedback from them and via comments made on the mygov web pages.