Self-Isolation Support Grant: equality impact assessment

Executive Summary

The Scottish Government has been clear since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic that self-isolation was, and continues to be, an essential tool in reducing the spread of Covid-19. With this in mind, the Scottish Government took the necessary steps to provide financial assistance for those groups of people who would otherwise find it difficult to self-isolate, or stay at home, when required or advised to do so.

In developing this fund, the Scottish Government is mindful of the three needs of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) - eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not - and recognises where the measures may benefit people with protected characteristics.^[7] Where any negative impacts have been identified, we have sought to mitigate/eliminate these.

We are also mindful that the equality duty is not just about negating or mitigating negative impacts, as we also have a positive duty to promote equality. We have sought to do this by designing the grant so the eligibility criteria of the grant allowed us to include as many groups as possible.

Delivery of the SISG needed to be achieved quickly, and be deployed and supported from within the existing public administration infrastructure. A simple claim process was established by adapting the existing SWF processes, which were already consistent with existing compliance standards.

The Scottish Government understands the impacts of Covid-19 have been, and will continue to be, experienced disproportionately by different groups, including women, those from minority ethnic communities, older people and disabled people which is why £4.4 billion was committed to providing financial support. This emergency funding has supported otherwise strong and viable businesses, protecting the business base, jobs and people’s livelihoods - helping prepare for a stronger economic recovery.

In order to address the needs of many sectors adversely impacted by the pandemic, a range of business support and personal support funds were introduced quickly, over several months, to provide emergency funding to help secure jobs, safeguard businesses and to alleviate financial personal hardship. The SISG was one such fund.

SISG development has aligned with SG Health policy, who lead on the emerging developments of Covid Policy. SISG development was originally housed within the Fair Work Directorate, given the support lay with businesses and economic impact, but given the growing scale and impact of Covid-19 across the economy, a bespoke Directorate was established in February 2021– COBRAS (Covid Business Resilience and Support) – to develop resilient and targeted economic support. At the beginning of 2022, it was announced that SISG policy would be moved to the Directorate for Economic Development after COBRAS was dissolved in June 2022.

Prior to 1 May 2022, when the eligibility changed as the impact of the restrictions changed, eligibility for the grant was restricted to those low income workers or parents/guardians who have been notified by Test and Protect or an incident management team or those who are not fully vaccinated.

Before the self-isolation period, or period when advised to stay at home, you also had to be:

• employed or self-employed
• unable to work from home, and will lose income as a result of self-isolation
• be assessed as having low income, either
• the household is currently receiving, or has been awarded, but not yet received, a payment of the following benefits; or whose income may entitle them to Universal Credit, should an application have been made prior to their isolation:
• be an individual who earns less than the Real Living Wage threshold
  • Universal Credit, Tax Credit, Income-based Employment and Support Allowance, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Pension Credit and/or Means-tested Council Tax Reduction.

From the start of the scheme in October 2020, until March 2022, local authorities awarded around 120,000 grants totalling £60 million. The latest forecasts, as at September 2022, project a further 19,000 awards, totalling £7.7 million, by the end of October 2022.