Social Security experience panels: appointees - report

Background and Research Methods

About the appointee process and the proposals discussed in this research

An appointee is a person or organisation given the power by a social security agency to act on another person's behalf in all interactions with the agency. This includes a benefit application, communication with the agency, and receipt of payments. They are also responsible for reporting any changes of circumstances to the agency.

Under the current DWP benefits system an appointee is only put in place for adults who are regarded as lacking capacity to make decisions, or for children. This would usually only happen for an adult where nobody else already has the legal power to act for them, and would always be in place for a child.

In the Scottish social security system adults deemed to be lacking capacity will still be able to have an appointee. Children will also be able to have an appointee if no one who lives with them is already legally able to act on their behalf.

If they want to, appointees already in place under the current DWP system will remain in place as a client's benefit is transferred to Social Security Scotland.

In this survey, participants were asked if there were situations where they would want to be able to choose to have an appointee act for them, even if they didn't fall into the categories described above.

Annex A provides a copy of information given to survey participants to help them to better understand what is meant by an "appointee" and how the appointees process differs from other support available to clients when accessing benefits.

About the research

This report outlines the findings from a survey that took place in June to July 2020 with Experience Panel members to help design the system for appointees within Social Security Scotland.

This survey was sent out to all Experience Panel members who had given consent to be contacted by email. This was due to restrictions in place due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic during the timeframe when the research was needed. During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) 'lockdown' staff working on the Experience Panels were unable to enter Scottish Government buildings to manage the usual alternative option of receiving surveys by post. It also took a number of weeks before infrastructure was in place to allow the Experience Panels helpline to operate with staff working from home. This survey could therefore only be completed online.

Participation in Experience Panels research is optional, and in this case 259 of the 1969 people invited chose to respond to the survey. This was a response rate of 13 per cent. The survey was written in straightforward language to ensure it was clear what was being asked. This survey combined closed ended and open ended questions to allow panel members to express their views in full.

Within the survey, respondents were asked about:

• Their previous experience of the appointee process in the existing benefits system.
• How the appointees process should work under Social Security Scotland.
• In what circumstances they may choose to have an appointee act on their behalf.

The Social Security Experience Panels are made up of volunteers from the Scottish population who have experience of at least one of the benefits that are coming to Scotland. The results of this work should be regarded as being reflective of the experience and views of the participants only, and are not indicative of a wider population. Percentages are given only to provide a broad sense of the balance of opinion across participants.

About the participants

Information from the survey was added to information from the 'About Your Benefits and You'^[1] and 'Social Security Experience Panels: Who is in the panels and their experiences so far'^[2] surveys. The demographic data collected in these surveys was linked to the information supplied previously by participants.

However, linking was not possible where there was missing or unclear information. 202 respondents' data were linked to demographic information supplied previously.

The following demographic information is given to give context to the findings from the survey. More detailed information about participants is available in Annex B.

Around 66 per cent of respondents whose data we could link identified as a 'woman or girl' and almost a third as a 'man or boy'. Half (50 per cent) were aged between 45-59 years old. Almost a third (32 per cent) were aged 60-79, and one in six (16 per cent) were aged 25-44.

87 per cent had a disability or long term health condition lasting 3 months or longer and 55 per cent had experience of being a carer. 45 per cent of respondents had experience of Carer's Allowance, 61 per cent had experience of Disability Living Allowance and 73 per cent had experience of Personal Independence Payment.

Almost eight in ten (78 per cent) respondents whose data we could link live in an urban area, and just over one in five (22 per cent) in a rural area.^[3]