Scottish Government consultations

We held a public consultation seeking views on the Scottish Government's proposals to mitigate the two-child limit in Universal Credit in Scotland. The consultation opened on 21 February 2025 and closed on 18 April 2025. 

We asked four questions about:

• whether Social Security Scotland should deliver payments to mitigate the two-child cap in Scotland;
• whether the powers at s79 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 to top-up Universal Credit should be used to mitigate the two-child cap;
• whether payments to mitigate the two-child cap should be disregarded as income by the UK Government; and
• any potential impacts of the proposed approach outlined in the consultation on different groups of people, communities and businesses.

We also held a workshop with people who have lived experience of the two-child limit on Universal Credit to supplement the online consultation.

A total of 267 responses were received. Most consultation responses were from individuals, with 42 responses from organisations. A range of organisations responded including third sector organisations, local authorities and representative bodies. 

During the workshop event attendees shared their answers to the consultation questions. Their insights were considered alongside the formal consultation responses.

We commissioned an independent research company, Wellside Research, to conduct the analysis of the consultation responses and their analysis report has been published on the Scottish Government website. We have published the consultation responses, where permission has been given to do this, on Citizen Space.

The Scottish Government is committed to effectively scrapping the impact of the two-child cap in 2026. We are working at pace to begin payments as soon as possible.

We sought your views on the proposal for the Scottish Government to seek the Parliament’s approval to extend the duration of Part 2 Order Making Powers in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 for a further five year period from June 2025 to June 2030.  The consultation opened on 16 December 2024 and closed on 10 February 2025.

You provided us with 21 responses to the questions in our consultation. The responses came in from 15 organisations and six individuals.

With regards to the proposal to seek Parliament's approval to extend the Part 2 Order Making Powers for a further five years, our analysis of the responses found that 16 were in agreement, four opposed and one was neutral with no response given.

We published the responses to the consultation on Citizen Space, where permission has been given to do this.

We also published a consultation analysis report on the Scottish Government website.

As the responses received clearly support the proposal to seek Parliament’s approval to extend the order making powers for a further five year period, we took the necessary action to allow Parliament to consider and scrutinise the request to extend the powers. The Minister for Public Finance gave evidence in relation to this at the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 11 March 2025, where the committee approved the motion to extend these powers. Parliament approved them on 26 March 2025. The Minister for Public Finance signed the SSI (Scottish Statutory Instrument) on 27 March 2025 and this will take effect from June 2025. 

The public consultation sought views on proposed changes to clarify the status of digital assets as objects of property in Scots private law.

21 written responses to the consultation were received. We had a mixture of responses from individual respondents and respondents on behalf of representative bodies and organisations, mainly from the legal and financial services/fintech sectors.

Stakeholders overwhelmingly supported that primary legislation is the most effective way to resolve uncertainty regarding the status of digital assets in Scots private law. 

There was some divergence in responses regarding the scope of potential future legislation, particularly in terms of the recommended legal classification and defining characteristics of digital assets.

There was broad agreement that digital assets should be classified as incorporeal moveable things. On ownership and the transfer of ownership, most respondents agreed that control over a digital asset should generally be the basis for establishing ownership.

View the consultation analysis report

Where permission to publish has been provided, the consultation responses are now available to view online.

After carefully considering all responses, Scottish Ministers have decided to introduce a Digital Assets Bill as outlined in the Programme for Government 2025 to 26.  The consultation demonstrated strong support for clarifying the legal status of digital assets in Scots law by primary legislation.