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

Recommendation One: To assist stakeholders understanding of the impact of changes, relevant assessments from the decision-making process, relating to the Budget, social security assistance and uprating policy itself, should be clearly signposted in the Section 86A report and the policy note accompanying the up-rating regulations.

Observation One: The Commission welcomes the commitment to keep the uprating policy under review and to consider alternative approaches if inflation measures change materially.

Recommendation Two: To inform policy decisions about uprating Scottish benefits once agency agreements with the Department for Work and Pensions  have ended, the Scottish Government should undertake a policy review, and a further multi-criteria decision analysis of options. This should consider whether there are any measures of inflation which more accurately reflect the effects of inflation on households in Scotland.

Recommendation Three: SCoSS welcomes the decision to retain parity with the Department for Work and Pensions’ increase in earnings thresholds for carer benefits for this year. In future years, we would urge the Scottish Government to adopt a more predictable approach to annual up-rating of earning thresholds to provide greater certainty to carers.