The Scotsman Bulletin Monday August 18 2025 #SNP #Benefits

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin.

00:03My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman.

00:06I'm joined by our education correspondent,

00:09Katrina Stewart.

00:11Katrina coming to us out on the road, welcome.

00:14Hello.

00:16We're here firstly to talk about the front page

00:19of today's Scotsman and leading on an exclusive

00:23from Katrina that we'll get to speaking about shortly.

00:27Jenny Lindsay writing on Nicholas Sturgeon's Frankly Memoir

00:32and some of the biggest problems as she's identified with it.

00:36You can read that full opinion piece at scotsman.com.

00:40Also, there's some significant news coming up today

00:43with key White House meetings happening from this afternoon

00:47that will involve Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron

00:50as well as other key European leaders.

00:54There will be a lot of pressure on Ukraine

00:56and specifically Volodymyr Zelensky to come to the table

01:01with an agreement over conceding territory to Russia

01:06with an eye to a peace deal.

01:08There will be plenty of opposition to that.

01:10We'll bring you all the very latest at scotsman.com

01:13and in our print edition of the paper tomorrow.

01:15But Katrina, I've got you on to speak about what is

01:19a significant exclusive, a big black hole that the Scottish Government

01:23are looking to deal with?

01:24Can you fill us in on the story?

01:27Yes. So back in January, the Labour government announced

01:30that they were going to crack down on benefit fraud

01:33and they were going to change legislation to make it easier

01:38for the government to recoup money that had been, say, overpaid

01:42or had been claimed fraudulently.

01:45Now, the Scottish Government has its own benefits agency, Social Security Scotland.

01:50And the ethos of that is to be more respectful of people, to be kinder

01:55and they want to do the benefits system in a different way.

01:59So there are certain elements to this new legislation that the Scottish Government

02:03are not happy about.

02:05For the past few months, there's been a back and forth between Andrew Weston,

02:09who's the MP in charge of the DWP, and Shirley Ann Somerville,

02:13who's the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice in Scotland.

02:17And what the Scottish Government is not happy about is that this new legislation

02:21gives the government powers just to go directly into somebody's bank account

02:25and take the money back. Or if they don't have sufficient funds in their bank account,

02:30then the government can apply to the court to have a person's driving licence suspended.

02:35And Shirley Ann Somerville says that this doesn't fit the ethos of Social Security Scotland

02:42and how it wants to conduct the benefits system up here.

02:46So they have vetoed parts of the legislation that make things really complicated

02:53because at the moment the DWP recovers benefits on behalf of the Scottish Government.

02:58They don't have all of the powers that they need to recoup money that's been taken fraudulently or overpaid.

03:05So by vetoing this legislation, by saying that Social Security Scotland

03:11doesn't want the DWP to recover money on its behalf anymore,

03:16there's now a £36 million pot of money that's been overpaid

03:20that the Scottish Government is not going to be able to reclaim.

03:24They're saying that this doesn't lead to a black hole in the finances.

03:29But as it stands, there's £36 million that's been overpaid

03:32that is owed to the Scottish Government and they don't have any way of claiming it back.

03:36And of course the context to this as well is that last year,

03:40just about this time last year, the Scottish Government announced emergency spending controls

03:44because times are tight financially.

03:48So this is a huge issue and the Scottish Government is not being clear

03:53about how exactly it plans to get this money back.

03:56Katrina, we know with the devolution of some of the Social Security payments

04:01that there have been sticking points previously.

04:03It has cost the Scottish Government money to make sure the transfer happens appropriately.

04:10There's going to be more big decisions coming up in the second half of this year, isn't there?

04:15Because there's an autumn budget statement coming from Chancellor Rachel Reeves

04:20that could have implications as well.

04:22And that's not a period where the Scottish Government has a lot of money to throw around.

04:26How significant do you think this money is?

04:29I think every penny counts at the moment.

04:32We've seen under the emergency spending controls that the Scottish Government has done things like

04:37stop civil servants travelling back and forward from Glasgow to Edinburgh to save money on train fares.

04:43So they are trying really hard to trim all possible fat.

04:47£36 million in the context of a government budget isn't an enormous sum,

04:52but it is in the context of where the Scottish Government's figures are at the moment.

04:58And there have been continuing issues with Social Security Scotland,

05:02just with regards to the way that the Scottish Government wants to do benefits in Scotland.

05:08They want the welfare system to be kinder, but being kinder costs a lot more money,

05:13and it's money that they don't necessarily have.

05:15And I think another really interesting thing about this story and an important line in this story to point out

05:19is that in trying to get to the nub of what was happening here,

05:23I put in FOIs to both the Scottish Government and to the UK Government.

05:28The Scottish Government released letters to me that I'd asked for between Shirley Ann Somerville and Andrew Weston,

05:34but they were completely redacted, whereas the DWP handed over the letters with only very, very minor redactions.

05:41So the Scotsman will be appealing the Scottish Government FOI,

05:45but I think it's really telling that the Scottish Government didn't want to release the complete information

05:53about what was happening behind the scenes here,

05:56whereas the DWP was very happy to hand that information over.

06:00And Katrina, we know that Scotsman has reported over a number of years

06:04around transparency issues with the Scottish Government.

06:07We will watch this space for the latest on your success around appealing the redactions as well.

06:14You can read that full story at scotsman.com.

06:17Please follow us on all social media channels and go out and buy a copy of the Scotsman in print tomorrow,

06:22where we will cover all the latest on those Ukraine talks taking place later today.

06:28Katrina, thanks to you and thanks to everyone for joining us.

06:31Thanks so much.

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