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Social Security Scotland have a positive and ongoing engagement with the Scottish Union of Supported Employment. We are working in partnership with the Scottish Union of Supported Employment to ensure potential candidates for roles within Social Security Scotland are provided with information, encouragement and support.

Social Security Scotland has formed a close working relationship with Remploy who are the Delivery Partner for Fair Start Scotland for the Tayside area. We are working in partnership with Remploy to ensure potential candidates for roles within Social Security Scotland are provided with information, encouragement and support.

All permanent appointments to Social Security Scotland are through a fair and open recruitment process involving formal assessment and interview. We do not hold data on the number of candidates with a relationship with Remploy who have been made offers.

We are engaging closely with people who have a lived experience of accessing disability assistance to co-design an application process that is straightforward, accessible, and enables individuals to put across the information they think best describes their daily lives.

We are carrying out ongoing user research and we have also conducted research through our Experience Panel of people with lived experience of social security. A report on this research will be published in November 2018.

Both the Social Security Directorate and Social Security Scotland internal guidance on language is taking account of the emerging findings. These findings include feedback that ‘benefits’ is the most widely and easily understood term for a form of social security assistance and the word ‘client’ is the preferred word for someone in receipt of a benefit.

We intend to publish this as supplementary information with the Invitation to Tender (ITT) which, as it stands, will be issued to suppliers registered on the Scottish Governments Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) Lot 1 – Digital Outcomes.

Our new social security system is being designed with people, not for them.

We are carrying out ongoing user research and we have also conducted research through our Experience Panel of people with lived experience of social security. A report on this research will be published in November 2018.

Social Security Scotland internal guidance on language is taking account of the emerging findings. This includes the use of the word ‘benefit’, which people have told us is the most widely and easily understood term for a form of social security assistance.

The intended outcome is that the event will generate competition for the tender process and that any feedback received will be considered when refining the requirements prior to commencing a tender exercise.

The Social Security Directorate spent £5.2 million in 2017-18 and has spent £9.6 million to date in 2018-19 on goods and services from the private sector.

Social Security Scotland was formally established as an executive agency of the Scottish Government on 1 September 2018. It has not yet made any payments to private sector suppliers for goods and services but expects to do so in 2018-19.

The Social Security Directorate and Social Security Scotland utilise a range of private sector suppliers. The Scottish Government regularly publishes the detail of all expenditure over £25,000, this includes details of the nature of the expenditure and the supplier for the Social Security Directorate. Social Security Scotland will also publish reports to provide transparency of expenditure over £25,000.

The register of those attending the event is attached below.

The documents cited are subject to a non-disclosure agreement as they contain sensitive information that is not yet in the public domain.