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The Scottish Government has chosen to propose a “balance of probabilities” test in determining when to stop providing assistance, where it suspects fraud, as an appropriate level of protection to the public purse.

We believe that it would be disproportionate to apply a stringent criminal test to benefit decisions

To date, the Scottish Government has not specifically requested "mortality statistics" on Severe Disablement Allowance from The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

As stated in the policy position paper, where clients receive passported benefits up to six months later than when they started to be paid Disability Assistance, we believe this would result in confusion and disruption to clients.

We will use the feedback from the consultation to inform our drafting of regulations for all forms of Disability Assistance, including qualifying periods.

As part of building foundations for long term carer benefits, the Scottish Government has engaged with carers and carer organisations to identify potential areas for change. These suggestions include:

• Extending the eligibility to those with multiple caring responsibilities and reducing the time required spent caring.
• Exploring the possibility of introducing different levels of benefits for those with different caring commitments in different circumstances.
• Removing restrictions on those studying and looking at ways of encouraging carers into work and education.
• Exploring further payments for pensioners with caring responsibilities including to those already with underlying entitlements.
• Extending the period that CA is paid to a carer when the cared-for person dies or goes into hospital.
• Offering benefits in kind

Case transfer cannot commence until the new claims systems have been implemented.

DWP has not confirmed how many working-age people in receipt of Disability Living Allowance will not have been migrated to Personal Independence Payment at the date of transfer of Executive Competence, and will therefore require to be transferred.

Our starting position is that Short-term Assistance will not be recoverable where the principal assistance is found to have been overpaid rather than as a result of fraud.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on this proposal and will review its position in light of the responses to the consultation.

The Scottish Government will ensure that we consult on our proposals for the introduction of Carer’s Assistance in 2021. The Scottish Government is committed to building a social security system based on the needs and views of people who receive benefits.

This advice is available at .

The published Social Security case transfer policy position paper sets out our approach to transferring existing benefits from the DWP to Social Security Scotland.