The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendment and Transitional Provision) (Scotland) Regulations 2022: business and regulatory impact assessment

Objectives of the Amendments to the Five Family Payments Regulations

Rolling out SCP to those with children aged between 6 and 15 will ensure more children can receive the payment. This, together with increasing the payment to £25 a week contributes to the Scottish Government’s aim of meeting the child poverty targets outlined in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.^[7] We expect that the increased Scottish Child Payment of £25 could lift 50,000 children out of poverty, reducing overall child poverty by an estimated 5 percentage points in 2023/24.^[8]

Introducing auto-award for the BSG Early Learning and School Age Payments will help ensure eligible families receive their entitlement. Providing new exceptions to the general rule that an individual is only entitled to the higher Pregnancy and Baby Payment when they are applying in respect of their first child, will provide greater support to those who are likely to be starting from scratch, without the items the Pregnancy and Baby Payment is intended to provide. Removing the condition for BSG that the child is not looked after by the local authority in residential care will allow more low income families to benefit from this support. This change aligns BSG with both BSF and SCP, which do not have this condition.

For both BSF and BSG, the amendments will widen the meaning of surrogacy to ensure that all individuals who are responsible for a child through formal surrogacy arrangements can be classed as having responsibility for the child.

Widening the definition of kinship care across the FFP will ensure that, as we roll out SCP to children aged between 6 and 15, eligible kinship carers who are not related to the child but are known to them and have a pre-existing relationship with the child are included.