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Further to my response to S5W-21923, discussions with DWP have been ongoing since the devolved benefits programme began and are expected to continue while Agency Agreements are in use.

The budgets for the Scottish Government, including Social Security Directorate, are set out in the Scottish Budget each year, and links are provided below to each year’s Budget. These include budget lines for Social Security, which include the cost for directly employed staff and contingent workers.

2016-17:

2017-18:

2018-19:

2019-20:

Regarding a comparison of actual spend to budget, we report this annually in the “final outturn report for the Scottish budget”, and links are provided below to each year’s report:

2016-17 (provisional):

2017-18:

2018-19:

2019-20: to be published

For further information on the specific costs for contingent workers, we publish information on our procurement awards here, including contingent workers:

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We are learning from our experience of operating the first Agency Agreement with DWP. Following Social Security Scotland’s first annual audit, officials are holding discussions with their counterparts in DWP, on various matters pertaining to audit and assurance. These discussions are on going and have been positive and helpful.

We publish the following information on staff salaries in the Scottish Government, which includes the Social Security Directorate:

And we publish the following information on our staff numbers:

Regarding the salaries for contingent workers, we refer you to the PQ responses in the following links:

S5W-25516 – /parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S5W-25516&ResultsPerPage=10

S5W-25345 – /parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S5W-25345&ResultsPerPage=10

Given the speed at which the Scottish Child Payment is being rolled out, policy and delivery development to date has primarily focussed on the early payments for children aged under 6 which will begin before Christmas 2020.

Across social security, we are committed to reducing the barriers to claiming benefits and promoting take up, making the process as simple and straightforward as possible, and ensuring people are treated with dignity and respect. Ahead of the payment being fully rolled out by the end of 2022, we will continue to undertake detailed stakeholder engagement and user research, alongside operational and technical requirements, to inform future application and payment processes.

The latest policy position paper, published on gov.scot, provides further detail on this: .

When the Scottish Child Payment was launched, it was made clear that while the payment would be fully introduced by the end of 2022, early payments would be made for children under 6. In order to introduce this payment early, and significantly ahead of schedule, we have had to work within certain legal and technical parameters. This is, therefore, a standalone payment for eligible families with children under 6, and, at this stage, payments will not continue beyond this age during 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Full details of the legal and technical issues is set out in an updated position paper, published on Friday 4 October and available on the Scottish Government’s website: .

(a) each month

Table 1. Number of permanent staff who made an overtime claim for programme management and delivery division.

Table 1. Cost of overtime claims for permanent staff in programme management and delivery division.

Table 1. Overtime hours and minutes worked in each month for programme management and delivery division permanent staff.

All suppliers contracted to provide interim and contingent labour are required to provide monthly reports detailing the workers assigned and the associated rates charged.