Holyrood can exempt Scots taking part from having benefits stopped or cut thanks to newly devolved welfare powers

Unemployed Scots taking part in newly devolved, voluntary work programmes will not face sanctions, after the Scottish government won its battle with Westminster to exempt those taking part from having their benefits stopped or reduced.

The Scottish government’s minister for employability and training, Jamie Hepburn, welcomed this as “a great relief to individuals who have had to cope with this unnecessary stress and harm in the past”.

Hepburn said: “I am delighted that the Scottish government can give people an assurance that they will not be sanctioned through our employment programmes. We can now show that our programmes are an opportunity and not a threat.”

The newly devolved welfare powers, which were agreed under the Scotland Act, allow Scottish ministers to design their own employment services for disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment, beginning in April 2017. These transitional arrangements will be made before a full Scottish programme of employment support launches in April 2018.

Although sanctions will still be Westminster’s preserve, Hepburn has been pressing the UK government to clarify its position on whether Scots taking part in work programmes could be exempt because of the voluntary nature of the schemes. According to research by the Scottish Greens, 80,000 sanctions have been issued to people on employment programmes in Scotland since 2010.

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Hepburn added: “While we won’t have the powers to prevent people from being sanctioned by the UK government, we can make sure we take a distinctly Scottish approach through our employment programme.”

The work and pensions secretary, Damian Green, confirmed the Scottish exemption in a letter to the convener of Holyrood’s social security committee, Sandra White, on Tuesday.



Reiterating his belief that conditionality and sanctions “contribute to a fairer society” and are “an important part of our benefits system”, Green said that the Department for Work and Pensions would make referrals to the devolved programmes on a voluntary basis, meaning that a sanction would not be applied for failure to attend or participate.

Green wrote: “DWP does, however, remain interested to see how the Scottish government will achieve delivery of an effective system which both secures value for money, and provides successful outcomes for those at risk of long-term unemployment, where engagement is on a purely voluntary basis.”

Last month, Hepburn said his government “doesn’t want to facilitate the UK government’s sanctions regime” when he met a group of single parents at the Edinburgh offices of One Parent Families Scotland.

He said he was planning work programmes that were voluntary and took into account the complexity of individual circumstances, after hearing the parents describe sleepless nights under threat of sanction and the practical difficulties of finding even entry-level jobs that were compatible with childcare.

Marion Davis, head of policy at One Parent Families Scotland, welcomed the result, saying: “We are very pleased that the Scottish government has taken a stand against benefit sanctions that force many single parents into low-paid and poor-quality work.

“But there are still tens of thousands of single parents who are not in paid work and facing the risk of being sanctioned. They don’t need the threat of destitution to get them into work but need flexible and affordable childcare and better paid work.”