7.  The Calman Commission and Scottish Devolution

7.1 On 15 June 2009, the Calman Commission on Scottish Devolution published its report, “Serving Scotland Better: Scotland and the United Kingdom in the 21st Century”. The Commission recommended that, as part of its consideration of future reform of the Social Fund, the UK Government should consider devolving the discretionary elements of the Social Fund to the Scottish Parliament.

7.2 The Government response to the report was published in the White Paper, “Scotland’s Future in the United Kingdom”, on 25 November 2009 and in that the Government agreed to consider how discretionary payments might be devolved to Scotland and the advantages of doing that.

7.3 In the Welfare Reform Act 2009 we took powers for external providers to provide social loans, in place of loans from Jobcentre Plus. As we said above in paragraph 2.18, we do not intend to develop this proposal at the current time and we will consult further before doing so. When we do, we will consider the devolution aspects of the policy as part of that exercise.

7.4 Community Care Grants are not repayable and may lend themselves more easily to being delivered by an alternative provider to Jobcentre Plus. If devolved, the choice of delivery organisation, setting of priorities and so on would be a matter for the Scottish Parliament, as would the decision on whether or not to maintain the cash-limited “pot” of money, as now or to change the amount available.

7.5 If responsibilities were devolved we would need to be clear what the specific advantages were, with regard to the replacement of one tier of national government with another given that in both Scotland and in England and Wales delivery has already been devolved to the local level.

Question

Should the power to make Community Care Grants and a per capita proportion of the Community Care Grant budget be devolved to the Scottish Government? What would the benefits of devolution be?