SOCIAL security claimants are being given the chance to help shape Scotland’s first welfare system. The Scottish Government has announced that those directly affected will be asked for their input on the new system – the biggest change to Holyrood’s powers since devolution.

The first step towards implementing the changes was taken last week with the introduction of the Social Security Bill. This will give ministers the power to deliver 11 benefits devolved under the Scotland Act 2016, including Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment, Cold Weather Payments and Carers Allowance.

The move will affect more than 1.4 million people in Scotland and will lead to expenditure of £2.9 billion a year.

As part of its scrutiny of the Bill, Holyrood’s Social Security Committee wants to hear from those who will be directly affected.

“This Bill will have a huge effect on the daily lives of millions of people across Scotland,” convener Sandra White pointed out. “It will impact on some of the most vulnerable in our society and so it is vital that our committee make sure any Bill works and delivers for ordinary Scots.

“It is clear from the principles within the Bill that the Scottish Government want people to be at the heart of the new system.

The first reforms have already been announced and these mean that housing benefits will be paid out more flexibly and more frequently than elsewhere in the UK.

Universal Credit payments remain reserved to Westminster but the frequency of payments can be changed by the Scottish Government to fortnightly from monthly.

It will also be possible for housing benefits to be paid directly to landlords instead of via claimants.

Measures to allow payments to be shared among different household members are also being investigated in response to lobbying from women’s groups who want reform of the current system where a family payment goes to only one member of the family.

A new Social Security Agency is to be created to administer the Scottish system and Holyrood has already said that private firms will be banned from conducting assessments after outrage over the tactics of the companies used by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

Both Atos and American company Maximus - who took over in 2015 - have faced heavy criticism over their work capability assessments.

The DWP has admitted that 2,380 people died between December 2011 and February 2014 after they were found fit for work and their claim for employment and support allowance (ESA) was rejected.

In addition, earlier this year academics at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt and Napier universities found that Work Capability Assessments sometimes led to a “deterioration in people’s mental health which individuals did not recover from”.

As well as introducing a system based on “dignity and respect” the Scottish Government has said it will bring in long term benefit awards for people who are unlikely to recover their health, in order to stop the “revolving door” of fit-to-work assessments.

While all the new measures have been welcomed by anti-poverty campaigners, some want the Scottish Government to go further and use the powers immediately to top up child benefit by £5 a head. Social security minister Jeane Freeman has said she is “sympathetic” towards the campaigners’ case but pointed out that the UK Government is still cutting welfare spend by £2bn in Scotland by 2020.

“We are currently spending £100m every single year to mitigate the worst affects of those benefits in a context where our overall Scottish budget has been cut by 9.2 per cent,” she said.

The Scottish Government has said it aims to have the new agency delivering the devolved benefits by the end of this Parliamentary term.

“This requires a large-scale programme of transition, implementation and reform,’’ a spokesman said.