Business Plan 2025-26

I am delighted to introduce the Scottish Commission on Social Security’s business plan setting out our strategic objectives and priorities and what we plan to do in 2025-26 to meet them.

Since taking up the position of Chair, in August 2024, it has been clear that the focus of the Commission is beginning to shift from scrutiny of the initial devolution of social security benefits to consideration of draft regulations that seek to amend existing devolved benefits. This has a subsequent impact of the depth and extent of our scrutiny workload with reports often within restricted timescales. We anticipate that this change in focus will continue in 2025-26 as the initial devolution of benefits approaches its conclusion.

I would like to draw particular attention to two significant highlights in my first months as Chair of the Commission. Firstly, we published our first report under our duty to, from time to time, consider whether the expectations in the social security charter are being met. We considered the experiences of people with communication needs interacting with the devolved social security system, and our report represents not only the culmination of an extensive period of scrutiny work but also a positive milestone in the development of our scrutiny work.

Secondly, I have been struck by the extent to which we rely upon the expertise of, and assistance from, our stakeholders in supporting our scrutiny work. Accordingly, we published our first stakeholder engagement strategy in 2024 in recognition of the importance of this area of our work. I fully expect that stakeholder engagement and Charter scrutiny will continue to develop as important areas of our work in 2025-26.

The implementation of the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025 will expand our remit and also streamline our governance arrangements.  We expect that regulations to give effect to these provisions in the Act will take effect during 2025-26.

We look forward to working with you throughout 2025-26 as the Commission aims to continue delivering independent, expert scrutiny that seeks to assess whether the Scottish social security system meets its full potential to improve outcomes for people accessing the system.

Ed Pybus, Chair, Scottish Commission on Social Security