T he Covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the Scottish Government, Social Security Scotland and the Department for Work and Pensions, whose support we need to transfer social security powers. As I set out in April, we are having to rework our timetable to deliver the remaining devolved benefits and complete case transfer. That is an on-going and complex exercise.

We need to consider the impact of the pandemic not only on our services, but on the availability of health and social care professionals across health boards and local authorities to bring their expertise to the co-design and delivery of disability and carer benefits at a time when many of them are still needed on the front line to support communities during the pandemic. That includes the recruitment of practitioners to help us to make consistent, high-quality decisions about entitlements and the role that health professionals and local authorities will play in providing the agency with supporting information on clients’ applications.

We also have to take account of the extraordinary pressures that the DWP is still experiencing following the unprecedented demand for universal credit, which is impacting on the resources that it is able to devote to the devolution programme.