Mr Balfour is inaccurate in his description of the agency’s performance because, as the client survey has evidenced, people’s experience of applying to and dealing with the agency is very positive.

We are always looking to improve the efficiency and client experience of our services—for example, we are putting a lot of investment and thought into automating benefits. Child winter heating assistance is already automated, low-income winter heating assistance will be automated, and no one will have to reapply for our disability benefits, because they will be automatically transferred from the DWP to Social Security Scotland.

We will also automate two of our family payments—the best start grant early learning payment and the best start grant school-age payment—in line with the Scottish child payment, where we already have the information to do so. A lot of work is going on to continue to improve the system, but efficiency is already at the heart of everything that we do.