I am pleased to speak in the debate. I would have preferred to be in the chamber today, but, as you can tell from my voice, Presiding Officer, I am still struggling a wee bit with an illness. I point that out to highlight the fact that the continuation of the virtual sessions has allowed me and other members to continue to work and contribute from home instead of being unable to participate.
Today’s debate is important. I welcome the 2019 benefit take-up strategy and the 2021 strategy. As the cabinet secretary said, the new strategy is based on five key principles: prioritising person-centred approaches; communicating and engaging effectively; bringing services to people; encouraging cross-system collaboration; and continuously learning and improving. I do not think that any MSP could disagree with any of those principles.
The process is crucial and should be scrutinised, but the most important things are the outcomes for our fellow citizens who need to engage with Social Security Scotland to obtain the benefits to which they are entitled. Every one of us will have heard claims of people “milking the system” and being “benefit scroungers”. If people obtain resources because the UK welfare system is overly complicated, I do not blame the people; I blame the system and how it was established. In the same vein, over the years, that same complicated UK welfare system has allowed many people who have desperately needed benefits to miss out on them.
I highlight those two examples for a specific reason. I accept that establishing any new system will not be without challenges and that unforeseen issues will be found along the way. There clearly will be questions about the formulation of any system, but the challenge for any Government is how to fix them. We have seen the desperate state that many of our constituents have been in because of universal credit and the failed amendments to it, so I hope that the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament never make those two mistakes.
I found the new strategy refreshing, with its principles of prioritising a person-centred approach, continual learning and improvement, and encouraging cross-system collaboration, which will, of course, be the toughest challenge. Through stakeholder engagement, the Scottish Government has identified the main barriers to take-up of benefits. First, there is a lack of information, which leads to a lack of awareness of or misperception about entitlement to benefits and application procedures. Secondly, costly or complex access inhibits the application procedure. That can be because of the need to travel to a welfare or employment office, a lack of resources, including time, or people’s limited competence to find their way through the system. We have already heard about a couple of those things from other members. Thirdly, there are the social barriers of perceived stigma, pride, a subjective lack of need for benefits and a lack of trust in institutions.
Sadly, the stigma around claiming benefits is real for many people. I have known constituents who did not want to apply for benefits because of their pride. They did not feel that they needed the benefits and wanted the money to go to others, even though some of those people’s lives would have benefited greatly from the additional resource. We have heard from colleagues—including from Emma Roddick, in an excellent speech—about the issue of stigma, and I agree with them about that. We have to do something better about the issue. In the Scotland that I want to see, the stigma of obtaining benefits would be removed.
Some MSPs have never needed to access benefits, while others, including Emma Roddick and me, have. For those of us who have, it was a sobering experience that has stayed with us. That is why I absolutely endorse the three key principles of the benefits that are controlled by this Parliament: dignity, fairness and respect.
The new strategy will deliver a few aspects that I believe will help many of my Greenock and Inverclyde constituents as well as people across the nation. First, actions from the strategy, which build on learning from the 2019 strategy, include working with partners to improve targeting of information and advice, challenging the myths and stigma around claiming benefits, and continuing to remove barriers to accessing social security in Scotland.
Secondly, the roll-out of Social Security Scotland’s local delivery network—with 400 staff in 32 local authorities by the time the service is fully operational—will be crucial. That will also enhance the many public and third sector organisations, including Financial Fitness and Christians Against Poverty, that operate in my constituency. I believe that the establishment of a stakeholder take-up forum to proactively identify examples of best practice and settings in which they might be replicated will be hugely beneficial, as will working with stakeholders to co-design interactive and helpful resources to support the mainstreaming of existing good practices around benefit take-up.
Thirdly, the multichannel financial wellbeing marketing campaign, which will begin with a focus on benefit take-up and will cover free debt advice and affordable credit, is vital. In particular, the important work that credit unions undertake in our constituencies can play an even greater part in that activity. Recently, I was delighted to meet with the Tail O’The Bank Credit Union in my constituency. I know how important credit unions are to their clients, but I also know the opportunities that they can deliver for many more people.
Finally, it is vital to work with a range of seldom-heard groups to better understand and address a lack of take-up among particular populations. Scotland is a country with a rich tapestry of backgrounds, which I warmly welcome. Therefore, understanding some of the cultural challenges is vital to ensure that all new Scots are equal partners in our nation.
We all know that, as part of the national mission to tackle poverty, the Scottish Government is determined that everybody should be able to access the payments that they are due. I believe that the new strategy and, more important, the outcomes from it, will help to achieve that mission.
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