Business Plan 2023-24

The Business Plan sets out our strategic objectives and our priorities for 2023-24 which will enable us to meet these objectives.

Devolved benefits are being introduced and delivered in a challenging socio-economic environment.  These challenges include the impact of the pandemic on the labour market, the cost of living crisis and the challenges facing public finances both in the current financial year and future years.

The devolved benefits system will undergo further significant expansion during 2023-24.  For SCoSS, this will include scrutiny of regulations that will lead to the delivery of the Carer Support Payment and Pension Age Disability Payment which will be the fourteenth and fifteenth benefits to be devolved.  In addition, the ‘safe and secure’ transfer of around 700,000 disability and carer benefit cases from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to Social Security Scotland will continue in 2023-24 and is a critical area of activity to the effective delivery of devolved benefits.

Delivering devolved social security benefits aligned to the Social Security Charter underpins the Scottish Government approach to developing the devolved social security system in Scotland.  The Scottish Government has begun work reviewing the Charter and SCoSS intends to assist and scrutinise the outcome of the review.

In 2022-23, the Scottish Government commissioned a review of the remit, role and constitution of SCoSS conducted by independent consultants.  SCoSS anticipates that the findings of the review will be published in 2023-24 and will begin implementation of the recommendations in the current financial year.  The outcome of the review will provide a key means of ensuring that the governance of SCoSS is effective to enable the delivery of our priorities and statutory responsibilities.

The key priorities section of the business plan sets out in more detail the focus our work in 2023-24, under the broader headings of our Strategic Objectives which are detailed below.