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Scottish Government publish their contract award notices on Public Contracts Scotland, supporting the principles of transparency and openness. This applies to regulated procurements (£50,000 goods/services and £2 million works). Details can be found here .

There is no requirement to publish contract award notices for un-regulated procurements, where the value is under £50,000 goods/services or under £2 million works, or call-off contracts from Frameworks.

Only one procurement exercise for the programme has been terminated. This was for Disability Benefits Assessments Service Design with an estimated value of £8m.

I will update Parliament on our position on social security in due course. In the meantime, I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24018 on 26 June 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at .

We are working closely with Audit Scotland on the Annual Report and Accounts audit process. That process remains on schedule to table the first set of Accounts for Social Security Scotland in line with our legislative requirements.

The Carers Strategic Policy Statement will be a high-level document setting out the Scottish Government’s approach and policies for carer support across a range of Ministerial portfolios. As such, it is not intended to announce or form the basis for new policy. We expect the document to be helpful for those working at local and national level to inform strategic planning and policy development.

To develop the draft document, we have undertaken extensive engagement with partners. Feedback about the purpose and value of such a document has been positive.

To allow time to properly address the helpful feedback from this extended engagement, we now plan to publically consult on the draft document this autumn. We are also planning a stakeholder event in October to allow those with an interest in the document to find out more and provide feedback.

We expect to publish the final Carers Strategic Policy Statement in spring 2020, subject to feedback from the consultation.

Social Security Scotland has grown in scale since its launch in September 2018. It currently employs around 400 staff - mainly across its Dundee head office and second Glasgow site. Once fully operational, that will grow further to in excess of 1,900 people. The staffing and structure will continue to grow and change as new functions, local face-to-face delivery and further devolved benefits are launched.

Table 1 shows the number of individuals who have self-selected the disability category as of 31 December 2018. It is necessary to take caution when interpreting these figures, as this question is not mandatory. Therefore, it may not give an accurate picture of the true number of disabled people that are employed by Scottish Government or its agencies. For example, Social Security Scotland, was established around three months before this snapshot was taken.

Furthermore, primary suppression has been applied to columns where only 1-4 individuals have self-identified as disabled. In order to prevent the disclosure of these figures by process of elimination, secondary suppression has been applied to columns which may have considerably more than four individuals self-identifying as disabled.

The Scottish Government will publish a Recruitment and Retention Plan this year. The plan will reiterate our commitment to our disabled employees, and outline the action SG will take to ensure that they are supported to progress within the workplace and that we become an employer of choice for disabled people in Scotland.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission provides independent and official forecasts of all devolved social security expenditure, to inform the Scottish Budget. This will include the Scottish Child Payment. We have made the Commission aware of the Scottish Child Payment and provided our initial assessment of its expected costs and impacts.

Finances for the Scottish Child Payment will be set out in full in the Scottish Budget later this year. The Scottish Fiscal Commission will provide independent forecasts of expenditure in line with their statutory duties.

We are working closely with Audit Scotland on the Annual Report and Accounts audit process. That process remains on schedule to table the first set of Accounts for Social Security Scotland in line with our legislative requirements.

The service design of the Social Security Scotland (a) desk-based and (b) face-to-face healthcare professional assessment function was tendered as one contract.

A total of four tenders were received by the tender return date of 11 March 2019 from the following companies:

1. Deloitte LLP

2. Capgemini UK PLC

3. Ent Serv UK Ltd

4. Sopra Steria Limited

The estimated cost of £180 million refers to the demand-led costs of the Scottish Child Payment – the total amount of payments which are expected to be made to recipients in 2023-24. The total establishment cost of the new payment to the end of this parliament, including implementation and administration, is estimated to be in the region of £32.5 million (across 2019-20 and 2020-21).

These costs and further details were set out in a letter to the Convenor of the Social Security Committee, issued at the same time as the announcement on the Scottish Child Payment. A copy of this is available on the Scottish Parliament’s website:

/S5_Social_Security/General%20Documents/
20190626_CabSecSSOP_to_Convener_on_Scottish_Child_Payment.pdf .