Minimum Income Guarantee: Experts by Experience Panel report - executive summary

Background and process

Delivery of the panel included the following:

• Recruitment in Summer 2022 of 30 diverse members of the public from across Scotland with experience of financial insecurity.
• Six phase one panel meetings from October 2022 until August 2023. Topics included benefits and challenges for delivering a Minimum Income Guarantee, fairness and conditionality, elements of a dignified quality of life, interactions with work, intersectionality and equality, and the role of services.
• Top up recruitment in Summer 2023 to replace some members who had left and take the total panel membership to 35 diverse people from across Scotland, with lived experience of financial insecurity.
• Three phase two panel meetings from November 2023 until April 2024. The panel looked at the level at which a Minimum Income Guarantee should be set, worked to advise the Expert Group on some live decisions, and produced a set of principles as the final output that will assist Expert Group members with the final design of a Minimum Income Guarantee. All panel meetings were deliberative; members learned about the topic, the wider context, and were presented with evidence and data; working in facilitated small groups where they had time to discuss and weigh up what they had heard and apply that to their lived experience; members arrived at a range of recommendations and guidance within each panel meeting as well as a final set of recommendation principles to guide the development of a Minimum Income Guarantee.
• Reports detailing the deliberation and recommendations from each session were shared with the Expert Group and findings built into relevant evidence papers to inform decision making. Following each panel meeting, between two and four members of the Experts by Experience Panel attended the subsequent meeting of the Expert Group as equals to the professional members to represent experiential knowledge in the discussions and decisions of the group.