SCoWR response to SSAC consultation on passported benefits

SCoWR suggest any universal credit entitlement should give access to all passported benefits. As a Scottish campaign we hope that this is the approach that the Scottish Government will choose to take to passported benefits under universal credit, given that responsibility for them is devolved. However, our concern is with how the welfare state impacts on citizens, and we see this as an opportunity to reduce administrative costs for government; and complexity from the perspective of claimants and thus boost take up, wherever they may live. Furthermore, passported benefits play an important role in enabling government at every level to meet wider education, health and anti-poverty objectives and targets. In considering how passported benefits fit with the new universal credit such considerations and outcomes need to be given as much, if not more, weight than an arbitrary limit on the amount which such entitlements cost.