SSAC to conduct rapid review of post-lockdown changes to social security benefits

Short-term review, which will be used to provide advice to the government by the end of the summer, will consider how easements have worked and what measures can best support claimants in the 'new normal'

The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) has announced that it is to conduct a rapid review of post-lockdown changes to social security benefits.

Setting out details of the review, Committee Member Professor Gráinne McKeever highlights that many of the social security easements that were put in place in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are now being reviewed, and advises that -

'SSAC is working to advise the government on what these social security changes should look like in the ‘new normal’. We are taking this work forward in two tranches. First, we will be doing an immediate and short-term review on what the most effective options might be in adjusting the urgent temporary measures that were introduced. This will inform our second tranche of work, focused on the longer term issues that the social security system will need to consider in a changed landscape of work, housing, caring, sickness and disability. We will be providing more details on this longer-term review in due course.'

Professor McKeever adds that, for the immediate review, the Committee will be working with groups and organisations involved in social security, along with the DWP and the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland (DfC), to consider how the easements have worked and what measures can best support claimants in the immediate future, and that the review will focus on the following three areas of concern -

• the reintroduction of conditionality - the Committee will be asking how the DWP and DfC will support claimants who have been shielding, along with others whose circumstances create vulnerabilities for them; and what guidance and discretion will be available to job centres to support claimants, including where local lockdowns are required, where there are particular geographical and sectoral impacts on unemployment, or where there is an absence or reduced availability of formal and informal childcare;
• provisions for the self-employed - the Committee wants to know how the changes to the minimum income floor, surplus earnings and reclaims process will impact on self-employed universal credit claimants; and
• sickness and disability benefits - the Committee is interested in the changes made to waiting days for employment and support allowance (ESA); changes made to eligibility for statutory sick pay; how operational changes made to assessments, reviews and extensions for personal independence payment and ESA awards have impacted on claimants; how shielding and social distancing requirements will be considered in the review of operational policy; and how the social security system has responded to the needs of carers during the lockdown.

For more information, including a comments facility for people with direct experience of the social security changes, see Rapid review of post-lockdown changes to social security benefits from gov.uk