The Carer’s Assistance (Young Carer Grant and Carer Support Payment) (Miscellaneous Amendment and Saving Provision) (Scotland) Regulations 2025: scrutiny report

These regulations introduce Carer Additional Person Payment. This is a new payment for carers who care for more than one disabled person. It is an extra £10 a week on top of Carer Support Payment for each additional person cared for.

We welcome this new payment which addresses a long-standing concern that social security for carers lacks the flexibility to recognise different caring roles. Evidence suggests that over a quarter of carers provide care for more than one person.  Around 17,000 carers in Scotland may be eligible for Carer Additional Person Payment. The Scottish Government sees it as a recognition payment to acknowledge that these carers face greater impacts on their health, wellbeing and ability to work and access other opportunities.

2.1 Hours of care

To qualify for Carer Additional Person Payment, a carer must provide at least 20 hours of care a week for the additional cared for person. A carer must also receive Carer Support Payment. They cannot get Carer Additional Person Payment on its own. While for many carers who care for more than person, more of their time will be taken up with caring, to get Carer Additional Person Payment, the 20 hours of care need not be on top of the 35 hours a week required to qualify for Carer Support Payment.

Example of hours of care: Aysha’s dad has Alzheimer’s disease and her mum has Parkinson’s. They both get Pension Age Disability Payment. Aysha spends 40 hours a week at her parent’s house. She looks after both her parents at the same time. Her dad needs almost constant supervision. Aysha helps her mum with personal care while also watching out for her dad. She can get Carer Support Payment for her dad and Carer Additional Person Payment for her mum.

This is very likely to be a source of confusion for carers and those who support them. We heard from stakeholders that they assumed that the 20 hours were on top of the existing 35 hours requirement. The draft regulations do not make it clear that the hours of caring can run concurrently. An unintended consequence of such a misunderstanding could be wrong advice and people being put off applying.

Recommendation 1: To avoid doubt about the policy intention, the regulations should be drafted to make it explicit that the 20 hours of care required for Carer Additional Person Payment and the 35 hours of care required for Carer Support Payment can run concurrently.

2.2 Universal Credit carer element

Entitlement to Carer Support Payment is a passport to entitlement to the carer element in Universal Credit.

Currently, a carer cannot get benefit for more than one cared for person. To prevent this, the rules provide that if a carer already gets a carer element in Universal Credit for one person, they cannot claim Carer Support Payment for caring for someone else. This rule is in regulation 12(1) of The Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023. With the introduction of Carer Additional Person Payment, it will become possible to get benefit for more than one cared for person. Therefore, one carer should be able to get Carer Support Payment and Universal Credit carer element as they can under the current rules, and also be able to get Carer Additional Person Payment for a different care for person.

Example: Annie gets Carer Support Payment for caring for her son. She also cares for her mum and gets Carer Additional Person Payment. She claims Universal Credit which includes one carer element in respect of her son.

The draft regulations amend regulation 12(1) to apply to ‘Carer Support’ (i.e. all three payments). However, as drafted, the rule seems to inadvertently prevent a carer getting Carer Additional Person Payment when they already get a carer element for a different cared for person.

Recommendation 2: The Scottish Government should redraft regulation 12 to ensure it does not inadvertently preclude any individual who is receiving the Universal Credit carer element for another cared for person from receiving Carer Additional Person Payment.

2.3 Older carers

Carer Support Payment has an ‘overlapping benefit’ rule that prevents people receiving it at the same time as a state pension or another ‘earnings-replacement’ benefit. This has had the effect of some carers feeling penalised by having benefit taken away at pension age and feeling that the care they provide is no longer valued.

Carer Additional Person Payment is not directly overlapped but does depend on Carer Support Payment being ‘payable’ so both will end when a carer begins to get their state pension. The Scottish Government is anticipating that this extra loss could intensify the lack of recognition felt by older carers and is continuing to develop policy on a long-term carer recognition payment.

When Carer Support Payment was introduced in 2023, we recommended that steps should be taken to significantly improve older carers’ experience of the system. The Scottish Government has told us about steps they have taken including that award letters to people with underlying entitlement are clear, recognise them as carers and give further information on the impact that underlying entitlement has on Pension Credit and other benefits. As well as this, signposting information has been included in ‘mygov’ content and in annual letters to carers; and there has been targeted messaging for older carers in the launch of Carer Support Payment.

We are pleased to note that further improvements are planned including a new user-tested notification in advance of carers reaching state pension age to better prepare them for payments stopping. In the longer-term, the Scottish Government is considering how applications for underlying entitlement can be streamlined. This active improvement demonstrates a learning system as Our Charter says that people are entitled to expect

Although it is still early to assess the impact of the measures implemented so far on the experience of older carers, stakeholders have expressed uncertainty about whether any improvements have been observed. We urge the Scottish Government to continue implementing measures at pace and to closely monitor progress.

Recommendation 3: To improve the experience of older carers, the Scottish Government should continue implementing measures at pace and to closely monitor and evaluate progress.