A Scottish Government agency has handed over £160m to the controversial DWP to deliver benefits devolved to Holyrood.
So-called “agency agreements” have guaranteed a continued role for a Tory Government department accused of cruelty.
Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy said: “People who need help are being left at the mercy of DWP systems – and we have been paying eye-watering sums for the privilege.”
Responsibility for a range of benefits was devolved to Holyrood in the wake of the independence referendum. But it has proven to be a huge task involving the creation of new IT systems and a massive transfer of data. One interim solution was for the Scottish Government to pay the DWP to administer some devolved benefits.
New figures show £114m has been paid out to administer Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which is given to people with long term mental or physical conditions.
Nearly £23m has been handed over to deliver Carer’s Allowance, nearly £9m for Attendance Allowance, over £13m for Disability Living Allowance and much smaller sums for two other benefits.
Social Security Scotland, set up by Holyrood, has now replaced PIP with the Adult Disability Payment. The DWP is hated by some benefit claimants who believe vulnerable people have been forced to meet harsh criteria to qualify.
The £161m cost, nearly all of which has been spent since 2020, comes after the Record revealed the soaring costs of the IT behind the devolved social security system.
Duncan-Glancy said: “SNP dawdling has not only left power in the DWP’s hands, but it has put money in their pockets.
“Now that the SNP are finally starting to use the social security powers they have, they need to use them to make a real difference. More of the same won’t cut it – we need to build a truly fair social security system in Scotland.”
A Social Security Scotland spokesperson said: "Agency Agreements are a cost-effective way of ensuring that people continue to receive the right payments at the right time while we undertake the work required to develop our new system and transfer the estimated 700,000 cases safely and securely from the DWP. Costs of Agency Agreements reduce over time as Social Security Scotland assumes direct running.”
“Since 2018, we have established a major new public service that is delivering 12 benefits – with seven of these being completely new and unavailable anywhere else in the UK. This week we started taking applications from across the country for our most complex benefit yet – Adult Disability Payment.”
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