Publications

The Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2021, passed yesterday on Tuesday 9th February, increases social security payments by the rate of CPI inflation (0.5%) from 1st April 2021. However, if the £20 a week uplift to UC is not made permanent in the Budget, this uprating is negated. From April, if the £20 weekly uplift is removed the value of UC’s Standard Allowance will drop by as much as a quarter (25%), when people need this money most. Removing the £20 a week uplift will leave the Standard Allowance for UC worth less in real terms in 2021-22 than when it was first introduced 8 years ago in 2013.

CAS is calling for: The £20 a week uplift to be made permanent

MP Briefing in support of 18 January Opposition motion to keep the £20 a week UC uplift.

An unprecedented number of people have claimed UC for the first time since March, with the total number of UC recipients in Scotland doubling since January 2020 to 475,000 people. At the start of the pandemic, CAS welcomed the UK Government increasing UC payments by £20 a week – an annual increase of £1,040. CAS now recommends that the £20 increase to Universal Credit is made permanent in the Spring Budget.

CAS recommends the £20 a week increase to UC is made permanent.

If the uplift is removed, it will have the following impacts:

• People across Scotland on Universal Credit will face a significant income shock and be pushed into poverty.
• Financial hardship will be exacerbated, with wider health and economic impacts.
• Those already struggling will be hardest hit. An additional 1 in 6 Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) clients in complex debt will be pushed into an income crisis.

At the start of the on-going pandemic, CAS welcomed the quick action taken to boost the level of payment of Universal Credit (UC).

Since March, Scotland’s Citizens Advice Network has provided over 85,000 pieces of advice on Universal Credit. The role of UC in the social security safety-net has never been as important as in the current crisis.

Citizens Advice Scotland recommends the draft regulations are amended to change or clarify a number of areas to improve the social security support provided to disabled children and young people.

In 2018-19, the Citizens Advice network helped over 270,000 clients in Scotland with almost 750,000 advice issues. With support from the network, clients had financial gains of over £131 million and our self-help website Advice in Scotland received approximately 3.7 million views. 

The Citizens Advice network dealt with 110,439 debt issues around half of which were government or local authority debts. Advisers gave advice regarding benefit related debt problems, our main UK wide government debt issue on 5,557 occasions.

Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft regulations. CAS warmly welcomes the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP), which is an excellent example of imaginative use of Scotland’s devolved social security powers to provide much-needed support to Scotland’s citizens. Scotland’s CAB network regularly advises clients who have required crisis support from the Scottish Welfare Fund or food banks due to their social security entitlements not being adequate to pay for essential costs. The Scottish Child Payment promises to be an effective tool for reducing child poverty in Scotland.

A fundamental review of disability assistance in Scotland must be initiated by the Scottish Government during the next parliament, according to a coalition of organisations campaigning for a long-term improvements to social security for disabled people. 

Following the devolution of powers over disability and ill-health benefits to the Scottish Government, the Scottish Campaign on Rights to Social Security, has launched its long-term vision for disability assistance in Scotland.