The Scottish Government has published an Outline Business Case for its new Social Security Agency. They are opting for
a central agency with enhanced phone and online support, which incorporates face-to-face pre-claims and support services locally in existing public sector locations and with assessments undertaken in a manner that is appropriate for policy choices that will be made as the final business case is progressed.
This is not a great surprise, because the Scottish Government has had a long-established preference for working through centralised agencies, and the case for doing this in a rights-based social security system is stronger than it is in fields which depend more heavily on professional judgment or local adaptation. The Business Case says something about the kind of system they want Scottish social security to be, but the document is still vague about many of the specifics: who the agency will be run by, what the new benefits will be, or how the rules will be decided.