Back

People with communication needs and the Scottish social security system: fulfilling the expectations of ‘Our Charter’

The Scottish Commission on Social Security's report on the experiences of individuals with communication needs in accessing the Scottish social security system.

This is our first report under our function to review whether people are receiving the service that the Social Security Charter expects.

Download report

Contents

1. Overview

The Scottish Commission on Social Security is pleased to present our report on the experiences of people with communications needs of the social security system in Scotland.

Since our formation in 2019, our role has focused on scrutinising new social security regulations. This is the first report of its kind prepared under our function as set out in the Act.¹ This allows us to “prepare and submit…, from time to time, a report containing an assessment of the extent to which any or all of the expectations set out in the Scottish Social Security Charter are being fulfilled, and recommendations for improvement where the assessment is that those expectations are not being fulfilled”.

We undertook exploratory research into the experiences of people with communication needs, linking these to the expectations in the Social Security Charter, known as ‘Our Charter’.²

1.1 Social Security Charter

‘Our Charter’ aims to explain in clear terms how Social Security Scotland and the Scottish Government “uphold the Principles in the Act… (take) a human rights based approach and… demonstrate dignity, fairness and respect.” It sets out 51 expectations under 4 headings:

A people’s service
Processes that work;
A learning system; and
A better future.

These expectations aim to give people accessing the Scottish social security system clarity over what they are entitled to expect from the service.

Hard copies of ‘Our Charter’ are shared with clients and an electronic version is available via the Social Security Scotland website.³ Social Security Scotland produces ‘Our Charter’ in “a range of accessible formats including video with British Sign Language, audio, large print, Easy Read” and these are directly linked to on its website.

Social Security Scotland measures its progress towards fulfilling the Charter expectations by collecting data from a variety of sources, including client and staff surveys. It uses this data to publish a Measurement Framework setting out key data that will be collected and published to highlight whether Social Security Scotland is achieving these aims. The most recent framework measurement statistics were published in November 2024.⁴

The Act requires the Scottish Government to undertake a review of the Social Security Charter and the Charter Measurement Framework every five years. The Scottish Government published the results of its first review in March 2024.⁵ While there have not been significant changes to ‘Our Charter’ as a result, this research was undertaken during the period covered by the first iteration of ‘Our Charter’, and refers to client survey data from 2022-23. The second iteration of ‘Our Charter’ was published in February 2025.⁶

While general awareness of the role of the charter was not a key part of this research, we note that interview participants described it as ‘groundbreaking’, particularly for its influence on shaping the culture within Social Security Scotland and contributing to Social Security Scotland’s assessment of its own performance. They also said, however, that the Charter was not widely known about or referred to by clients. Advisers may know about the Charter, but were more likely to refer to regulations rather than charter expectations when dealing with Social Security Scotland. This is an area that we and other researchers may wish to return to in future reports.

1.2 Inclusive communication

The Act requires information to be given in a format which is accessible to people with a ‘sensory, physical or mental disability’.⁷ Social Security Scotland has committed to designing services to meet the expectations of people who need to communicate in a variety of ways. Social Security Scotland intends to ensure that it designs services “so that as many people as possible understand what we do and can communicate with us and access our service in the way they want to.”⁸

Social Security Scotland co-produced an Inclusive Communication Action Plan with its stakeholders. This outlines how they intend to embed inclusive communication good practice across Social Security Scotland.⁹ An e-Learning module has also been specifically developed for Social Security Scotland staff. This was co-produced with members of the Inclusive Communication External Stakeholder Reference Group who provide advice on being inclusive in all of Social Security Scotland’s communications.

1.3 Research focus

Social Security Scotland’s 2022-23 Client Survey highlighted a notable pattern of lower satisfaction ratings among certain demographic groups, including people with communication needs.¹⁰ ¹¹ Among this group, the client survey highlighted that:

The overall experience rating for people with communication needs (84%) was lower than that for those without (90%).¹²
Respondents with communication needs were less likely than those without to agree that they had a choice of how to communicate with Social Security Scotland.¹³
Respondents with communication needs were less likely than those without to rate their experience as good/very good.¹⁴
Whilst most respondents gave high ratings to the impact that receiving a benefit had had on their lives, the proportion providing a positive rating was lower for those with communication needs than those without.¹⁵
30% of respondents with communication needs reported barriers getting help from Social Security Scotland, compared with 16% of those without.¹⁶
8% of those with communication needs said they had experienced discrimination, compared with 3% of those with no communication needs.¹⁷
Comments in free text boxes also highlighted issues of communications and information.¹⁸

The pattern of lower client survey scores across each of these metrics, which is broadly repeated in the 2023-24 client survey¹⁹, prompted us to focus our research on the experiences of people with communications needs. The client survey shows that people with communication needs are more likely to face barriers to positive interactions with the Scottish social security system. Our smaller-scale, qualitative study may act as a first step towards identifying some of the reasons why this might be the case.

The desirability of exploring the experiences of clients with communication needs is further reinforced by the cross-governmental work already underway in this area. In 2023, the Scottish Government committed to improving inclusive communications across the public sector.²⁰ It might be helpful to consider progress made by Social Security Scotland in this context.

1.4 Research methods

This research explored the experiences of communications to, and from, Social Security Scotland. The aim was to gather first-hand views from people with communication needs who have used Social Security Scotland’s services and representatives of organisations with expertise in communication needs and of the social security system in Scotland.

This report takes a snapshot of the experiences of people who use, or may use, Social Security Scotland’s services at a particular point in time. It does not aim to represent the view of all users, but indicates issues arising for people with communication needs.

1.4.1 Focus groups

The research focuses on communication needs relating to an impairment with a specific focus on the experiences of people who would be likely to require inclusive communications. This includes people with sensory impairments (e.g. sight or hearing loss), people with dual sensory loss and people with a learning disability.

From March 2024 to September 2024, four partner organisations (ENABLE, the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, RNIB Scotland and YoungScot) convened focus groups with their members across Scotland, including people with communication needs and their support workers or advisers. In total these groups reached 71 people with varying levels of engagement with Social Security Scotland.

The focus groups considered:

Whether people feel they have been treated with dignity, fairness and respect
Experiences of stigma or any barriers in applying for Scottish social security
Views and experiences around the social security system being understood as a human right
Views on the communication and promotion of social security
Views on any improvements needed to fully address people’s needs.

Each of the three ALLIANCE events were run with a particular group of people with sensory impairments, ENABLE held a focus group specifically for people with learning disabilities to attend and YoungScot’s focus group focused specifically on young people with communication needs. Focus groups were held in Edinburgh, Dundee, Falkirk, Langholm and Kirkintilloch with invitations extended to groups beyond this and travel expenses reimbursed for those who travelled.

This research does not include people who experienced possible communication barriers because their first language is not English, although these barriers are also highlighted in the client survey.²¹ We spoke to a limited number of clients with communication needs resulting from neurodivergence. It may be helpful to consider these experiences further in future research.

1.4.2 Structured interviews

We spoke to representatives of organisations with knowledge of the needs of people with these impairments. We held five structured interviews²² with experts in the field of communication needs, third sector organisations with an interest in communication needs and the independent advocacy organisation commissioned to offer advocacy support to access benefits across the whole of Scotland.

The structured interviews considered:

Their perceptions of the strategies, policies, processes and delivery of Social Security Scotland services to people with communication needs
The role of interviewees and their organisations in ensuring people with communications needs can access the Scottish social security system and how this is delivered
How interviewees and their organisations ensure that all communication materials are fully accessible to individuals with different communication needs and whether these could be reasonably delivered by Social Security Scotland.
Their views about Social Security Scotland’s inclusive communications engagement, action plan and overall environment

Their views about, and public awareness of, the Social Security Charter.

1.4.3 Discussions with Social Security Scotland

We met with Social Security Scotland twice to understand the work they are doing on inclusive communications and discuss our research.

Early research findings were considered at the first meeting, whilst the second meeting highlighted more detailed findings and areas where we felt further clarification was needed.

Feedback from Social Security Scotland is included in this report, alongside the views gathered in focus groups and structured interviews. We are grateful to officials in Social Security Scotland who responded to questions and provided detailed and up to date information on their work.

In the following sections we explore some of the themes highlighted in client surveys, starting with interactions between individuals and their welfare rights advisers and Social Security Scotland staff.