Carer's Allowance Supplement (Qualifying Persons) and Young Carer Grant Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2020: scrutiny report

Applicants resident in the EEA or Switzerland will only be awarded YCG or CAS if the UK is the competent state for payment of sickness benefits to the individual. This is because the EU’s Administrative Commission¹The Administrative Commission for the Coordination of Social Security Systems is an EU Committee with representatives of each Member State which meets at least four times each year to facilitate dialogue between Member States and promote the proper functioning of the EU rules. Its role includes determining which cash transfers it classes as ‘social security’, requiring exportability to EEA states and accessibility to qualifying UK-resident EEA nationals in order to comply with the coordination rules has determined that CAS and YCG are sickness benefits for the purposes of the coordination rules.²Personal independence payment (daily living component), disability living allowance (care component), attendance allowance and carer’s allowance are also treated as sickness benefits for the purposes of the coordination rules. The other categories of social security benefit are: maternity and paternity benefits; benefits in respect of occupational accidents and diseases; death grants; invalidity benefits; old age and survivors’ pensions; unemployment benefits; pre-retirement benefits; and family benefits. Typically, this would occur if the person is employed in the UK, including as a civil servant or in the armed forces, is a posted worker normally based in the UK or receives UK unemployment or retirement benefits, or is a family member of a person in one of these categories. As with the ‘genuine and sufficient link’ test, no definition of the ‘competent state’ is set out in the draft Regulations and this should be taken into account in the drafting of guidance. ‘Competent state’ provisions in the draft Regulations apply to both CAS and YCG, although given that CAS can only be paid to someone already receiving Carer’s Allowance, an EEA-resident claimant of Carer’s Allowance would already have passed the ‘competent state’ test before being in a position to apply for CAS.

Recommendation 4: The Scottish Government should publish the clearest possible guidance on circumstances within which applicants are likely to pass the ‘competent state’ test and update this as significant developments occur.