The Scottish Government is working to raise awareness of Scottish benefits, and to ensure that people are receiving what they’re entitled to.
To support this, the Poverty Alliance – as part of the Get Heard Scotland project – worked to recruit, facilitate and support a Citizens’ Panel on the impacts of poverty related stigma on benefit take-up. Some 16 people were recruited and supported to contribute. All panellists were living on low incomes and eligible to claim social security.
Through six sessions – from December 2023 to March 2024 – the panel came together online, to share their experiences and insights into poverty related stigma and social security. Through supported discussions, panel members learned together about key policy challenges, built understanding of how poverty related stigma impacts on benefit take up, and deliberated to develop and prioritise a set of recommendations for steps the Scottish Government could take to reduce stigma and improve benefit take up.
You can read the report of the panel’s deliberations in the window below, or download it from here.
Get Heard Scotland Report - Impact of Stigma on Benefit Take Up - for Publication May 2024
Enter your email address to receive regular e-updates about our work. If at any time you want to stop receiving these, simply contact us. We’ll keep your details safe and won’t share them with any other organisations for their marketing purposes. For full details see our Privacy Policy.