Winter Heating Payment (Low Income) (Scotland): child rights and wellbeing impact assessment

If a negative impact is assessed for any area of rights or any group of children and young people, can you explain why this is necessary and proportionate? What options have you considered to modify the proposal, or mitigate the impact?

10. One of the most significant concerns that was raised in consultation responses was that people that live in areas where, historically, the household have received more than two CWPs a year (at a value of £25 per payment) may receive less support through WHP. Where children or young people are present within these households then it is possible they will be effected. It is not possible to say whether this will have a negative effect as we can only measure the comparative value of the payment in retrospect when we know how many contingent payments have actually been triggered.

11. However, the unpredictable nature of weather dependent payments is one of the key drivers of our proposed change in approach. There has been significant variability in payment numbers in previous winters where in many cases people have received no CWPs. Data^[5] from previous years shows that approximately 1,000 people who live within the Braemar weather station area have historically experienced more than 2 cold spells in each of the past 7 years, which will have triggered payments totalling more than £50 annually.

12. There are seven other areas which have received more than 2 CWPs in at least 2 of the past 7 years. DWP estimates show that in 2021-22 there were only 6 cold weather spells triggering payments in 4 out of the 27 areas identified through weather stations in Scotland (Aboyne, Aviemore, Braemar and Loch Glascarnoch) with only £325,000 of support provided to these households. Braemar received 3 CWPs (at a value of £75). This resulted in only 11,000 people receiving at least one payment out of the 394,000 eligible recipients^[6].

13. Our change in approach, moving away from weather dependency, means that we will ensure that all households who have been identified as requiring additional

support towards paying increased winter heating bills will receive it, regardless of weather, temperature or where they live.

14. We considered a number of options to mitigate the impact, including increasing the value of the payment as well as the possibility of making more than one payment to target areas that have historically seen more frequent cold weather events. However, any increase in value of the payment would significantly increase the budget required and an increase to WHP would not be affordable at this time. Making more than a single payment to eligible clients each winter would inevitably increase the complexity and cost of delivering WHP. The impact on both complexity and cost would depend on how many payment cycles were to be introduced, but making more than one payment to eligible clients each winter would add increased risk to the delivery of the benefit and increased staffing requirements for Social Security Scotland. However, we retain in the underpinning legislation the ability to legislate for additional payments to be made should the need arise and the funding be made available.