​Bill Scott on how charities have sculpted Scotland's new social security landscape

Last week the social security (Scotland) billhad its final vote in the Scottish Parliament.

Throughout the bill’s progress Inclusion Scotland has worked with other third sector agencies, MSPs, the social security minister and government officials to strengthen the rights that disabled people will have under the new law.

The task now will be to make sure that the bill’s implementation matches its aspirations

Bill Scott

We worked with members of the Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform (SCoWR) - such as CPAG, the Poverty Alliance, Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) and Camphill Scotland to have the following changes made to the bill:

* All claimants to have the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

* The establishment of an Independent Scrutiny Commission.

* The Independent Scrutiny Commission to check regulations to make sure that they are in line with social security principles.

* Individuals seeking social security assistance to always be paid benefits in cash unless they choose otherwise.

* Not all overpayments of assistance to be recoverable.

We also worked in partnership with a number of other agencies such as Camphill, the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists and CAS to get the following important late changes made to the bill:

A right to access independent advocacy services for all disabled people who require it when making claims to social security.

At first the government amended the bill to give a right to advocacy support to those covered by the Mental Health Act 2003 (people with mental health issues, learning difficulties and cognitive conditions like autism).

We succeeded in convincing the minister to extend that right to every disabled person who might need it. Local advocacy services will also receive increased funding to provide this new service.

All communications by the Scottish Social Security Agency should be in line with accessible communications principles.

We worked closely with the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists to have this right included in the bill and we believe it is unique in UK law.

The new agency will now be under a duty to provide information, and communicate with disabled claimants, in accessible formats in line with their individual needs.

Disabled people should not be required to undergo unnecessary medical assessments.

We and Citizens Advice Scotland worked with Alison Johnstone MSP to lay down an amendment which prevents people being sent to a medical assessment when the agency already hold sufficient medical evidence on which to decide a claim.

Although this will not stop all medical assessments it should substantially reduce the need for them.

That will be an enormous relief to the tens of thousands of disabled people subjected to these stressful, unnecessary and unfair assessments.

We also worked with Mark Griffin MSP and Pauline McNeil MSP to try and get a single stage appeals process included in the law.

Though we failed to win enough support for this change we did succeed in convincing the government to make changes to the appeals process.

Those changes will mean that anyone wanting to progress beyond the “redetermination” stage should be able to do so through simply ticking a box.

The task now will be to make sure that the bill’s implementation matches its aspirations.

Bill Scott is policy director at Inclusion Scotland.