Seldom Heard Groups Action Plan

18 Aug 2025 03:46 PM

This Seldom Heard Groups Action Plan outlines how the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland will continue to tackle the systemic barriers to benefit take-up faced by seldom-heard groups.

Introduction

The current Benefit Take-Up Strategy, published in October 2021, sets out key principles that guide actions and interventions designed to ensure that everyone can access the social security support they are entitled to. Central to this Strategy is a commitment to prioritising person-centred approaches which acknowledges the need for particular action to support those who face the greatest challenges in accessing their entitlements. The Scottish Government continues to put sustained effort into maximising benefit take-up in line with the strategy’s principles. There are, however, still some people who miss out on the financial support they are entitled to due to persistent barriers. Barriers to benefit take-up are particularly pronounced for seldom-heard groups—marginalised communities who face intersecting disadvantages that make it more difficult to engage with the social security system.

The Scottish Government established the Social Security Experience Panels in 2017, to inform the design and development of Scotland’s social security system. These were made up of people with lived experience of the social security system in the UK and they were instrumental in the development of our benefits and processes, ensuring the voices of those with lived experience were at the heart of service design. There remained, however, communities who were under-represented on these Panels. An internal scoping exercise was therefore conducted with officials in 2019 to identify communities who were more likely to be marginalised from the social security system. These are usually referred to as seldom-heard groups. The Scottish Government subsequently launched the ‘Seldom-Heard Voices’ research programme to understand the experiences of these groups, including the barriers they faced in accessing entitlements[1]. This engaged with people receiving benefits through Social Security Scotland, as well as organisations representing people with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

To ensure the Scottish Government continues to adopt person-centred approaches to take-up, and as part of commitments made in the Benefit Take-Up Strategy to tackle stigma and support seldom-heard groups to access entitlements, independent research into the barriers experienced by seldom-heard groups was commissioned in late 2023. The aim of this research was to further our understanding of which communities should be considered as seldom-heard groups, as well as the barriers they face to accessing their entitlements, and the impacts of stigma on benefit take-up. The two independent research projects were:

• Research into seldom-heard groups within the Scottish social security system - An evidence review of the current landscape of, and research on, seldom-heard groups. This research report also focused on barriers experienced by these communities when accessing entitlements, as well as potential enablers to take-up.
• Get Heard Scotland Citizens’ Panel on the impact of stigma on benefit take up - An engagement and policy development initiative facilitated by The Poverty Alliance and supported by the Scottish Government. The Citizens’ Panel was conducted with people with lived experience of poverty and sought to examine how stigma can influence take-up and identify practical steps to address this.

This Seldom-Heard Groups Action Plan sets out the Scottish Government’s response to these research findings. We are reassured to note that many of the approaches identified in the research to promote take-up and tackle barriers to access for seldom-heard communities align with existing Scottish Government benefit take-up policy and the principles of the current Benefit Take-Up Strategy. As such, this Action Plan outlines the ways the Scottish Government, together with Social Security Scotland, will continue to tackle the systemic barriers to benefit take-up faced by seldom-heard groups over the next 12 months, in the lead-up to the next Benefit Take-Up Strategy, by building on approaches and work underway.

The focussed, immediate-term actions that the Action Plan sets out have been shaped by the additional insights provided by the research on seldom-heard groups and stigma, as well as lessons learned from delivering benefit take-up activity over the course of the current Benefit Take-Up Strategy. The Action Plan will be implemented over a 12-month period. We know it will take longer than the duration of the Action Plan to address all insights and recommendations provided by the research. As such, these will continue to be used to inform the development of the next Benefit Take-Up Strategy.

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