The Social Security (Up-rating) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2025: scrutiny report

1.1 Overview

The Scottish Commission on Social Security (SCoSS) is pleased to present its report on the draft Social Security (Up-rating) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (hereafter referred to in this report as the ‘draft Regulations’).

The Scottish Government published its overall strategic approach to up-rating in 2019, having consulted SCoSS on the appropriate inflation measure.  The Scottish Government also published, in 2024, a ‘Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis’ (MCDA) to evaluate potential methods of up-rating using various measures of inflation and different reference periods.

1.2 Human rights and social security principles

Our scrutiny was undertaken with regard to the Scottish social security principles¹Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 asp 9 s 1. and relevant provisions of human rights law.

The Scottish Government’s overall approach to up-rating (2019), and the draft Section 86A report accompanying this year’s up-rating regulations, refer to specific social security principles that up-rating is intended to reinforce.  These are—

• Social security is an investment in the people of Scotland (principle (a));
• Social security is itself a human right and essential to the realisation of other human rights (principle (b));
• The Scottish social security system is to contribute to reducing poverty in Scotland (principle e)); and
• Opportunities are to be sought to continuously improve the Scottish social security system in ways which – i) put the needs of those who require assistance first, and ii) advance equality and non-discrimination (principle (g)).

The purpose of the annual up-rating exercise is to ensure that the value of social security payments is maintained (rather than increasing its value). By maintaining the value of social security payments as prices rise, up-rating contributes to these principles, especially reducing poverty (principle e) and continuous improvement to advance equality (principle g(ii)). Uprating is also referenced in the revised Charter as contributing to reducing poverty, such as through increasing the value of disability, employment-injury, carers, funeral expense benefits and the Scottish Child Payment every year in line with inflation; and reviewing the payment levels of all other Scottish benefits every year.