benefits

The expert working group on welfare

The Expert Working Group on Welfare was established to review the Scottish Government's work on the cost of the current benefits system, their plans for delivery of benefit payments in an independent Scotland, and provide views on transitional issues that would be relevant to the continued delivery of benefit payments in the event of independence.

This report presents a preliminary forecast of benefit spending in Scotland through to 2017-18 that covers the actual costs of the payments to individuals, and the costs to government of administering these payments.

Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2011

This report comes at a time when the UK government has outlined its main policy intentions and its strategy to reduce poverty. Although the statistics presented in this report still almost entirely reflect the policies of the previous government, the Labour record is the Coalition inheritance.

This commentary discusses the implications of that record for the current government in the light of its commitments on child poverty and social mobility set out in strategy documents published in 2011.