Fraud offence and admin fixes in new Social Security Bill
A new fraud offence, and a number of administrative fixes, are contained in the Social Security Administration and Tribunal Membership (Scotland) Bill, newly introduced to the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish Government has identified a need to create statutory offences in relation to forms of top-up assistance provided for under s 79 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. The bill also addresses a number of other matters needing to be addressed in order to ensure the continued effective implementation of the 2018 Act.
As set out in the policy memorandum its aims are to:
- allow for the appointment of a person to act on behalf of a child where there is no person with legal authority who is willing and able to so act;
- allow for the appointment of a person to act on behalf of an adult who does not lack capacity but due to difficult circumstances wishes for an appointee to act on their behalf;
- ensure ministers do not disclose information about an individual’s health where that would be likely to cause serious harm to the recipient’s physical or mental health;
- create statutory fraud offences in relation to the types of top-up assistance created under s 79 of the 2018 Act;
- enable ministers, by regulations, to transfer to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland some or all of the competence and jurisdiction of the sheriff courts in relation to the recovery of top-up assistance created under s 79;
- enable ministers to make provision in regulations about the investigation of offences in relation to top-up assistance;
- modify the power to make regulations under sched 5 to the 2018 Act, to widen the category of qualified persons whose clinical judgment, based on the appropriate guidance, will be accepted in relation to a diagnosis of terminal illness for the purpose of entitlement to disability assistance; and
- enable other types of judges to be temporarily authorised to sit in the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal.