As set out in the Scottish Child Payment policy position paper, once fully rolled out (by the end of 2022) eligibility for the Scottish Child Payment will be on the basis of children aged under the age of 16.

Continued policy and delivery development is being undertaken on the Scottish Child Payment, including our intended approach to assessment periods. This will be set out in regulations, and these will be submitted to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for scrutiny in the autumn.

As set out in the policy position paper, by the end of 2022 the Scottish Child Payment will be paid to all eligible children under the age of 16.

As set out in the Ministerial statement on the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan on 29 June, further work has been required to assess certain policy and delivery implications of the Scottish Child Payment.

As part of this work, we are considering a range of issues which includes assessment periods and verifying eligibility and entitlement. Our approach to this will be set out in regulations which we will submit to the Scottish Commission on Social Security in the autumn.

Information about the number of applications received, and authorised as eligible for payment, for Best Start Grant by payment type up to the end of June 2019 is available at: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/SocialSecurityforScotland/BSGJune2019 .

Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts are for financial years. It produced a supplementary policy costing for Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment in September 2018 in which it forecasted 4,000 payments in 2018-19, based on a 1 December 2018 launch. The Scottish Fiscal Commission “Social Security – Best Start Grant (Pregnancy and Baby Grant) – September 2018” policy costing is available at: http://www.fiscalcommission.scot/publications/supplementary-costings/social-security-best-start-grant-pregnancy-and-baby-grant-september-2018/ . In comparison, Social Security Scotland received 19,465 applications for Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment in 2018-19. Of those, 11,505 had been authorised as eligible for payment by 31 March 2019.

Such a model was considered. It was rejected for a number of reasons, including the technical complexity of designing it, the resulting risks to delivery of the other devolved benefits, and the ongoing uncertainty around delays to Universal Credit migration, which would have meant that clients awaiting migration would not be eligible to receive the Scottish Child Payment unless additional interfaces with legacy systems were also built.

In introducing the Scottish Child Payment the Scottish Government prioritised the delivery route which would deliver the benefit to the quickest timescales and with the least impact on the remaining devolved benefits. The option of an automated delivery model for Universal Credit(UC), which would have required these additional interfaces with legacy benefits for those who had not yet migrated onto UC, was considered as part of our assessment of all potential options, and discounted following discussion with senior officials and Ministers as it was not deemed to be the best fit with this objective.

The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 provides for advocacy to be available to support people with a disability to engage effectively with the Scottish social security system.

If a young person has a disability and is applying for Scottish disability assistance in their own right then they will be eligible to seek advocacy support. A parent or carer will be able to seek advocacy support to assist with their disabled child's application for assistance if they themselves identify as having a disability or if the child or young person wishes an advocacy worker's support to ensure their own voice is heard.

Scotland’s Census, last conducted in 2011 and next due to run in 2021, gathers population-wide data on self-reported long term conditions, including hearing loss and sight loss. A variety of reports and data are available to download including from https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/news/census-2011-release-3f-detailed-characteristics-health-scotland . Data are available for large areas, such as NHS Boards, as well as for smaller areas. They can be broken down in many different ways, including by age.

Additionally, there are a range of national surveys commissioned by the Scottish Government, including (but not limited to) the Scottish Health Survey and the Health and Care Experience Survey, which include questions on whether respondents have hearing loss or sight loss. These surveys are however based on samples of the population and, as with the census, the questions asked don’t differentiate between degrees of sight/hearing loss.

Through the work of local See Hear leads partnerships, sensory screening projects have been introduced in care homes in some local areas, for example in Perth and Kinross, Dumfries and Galloway, Angus, North Lanarkshire, Highlands, Edinburgh and Lothian, Ayrshire and Arran, Orkney and Forth Valley.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting with See Hear Leads to gather further information on the prevalence of sensory impairment and the reach of services to identify gaps and opportunities for service improvement. See Hear partnerships remain responsible for identifying local priorities, developing work streams, timescales and implementation plans, based on local priorities and need.

We are aware that some people with hearing loss go to private providers for hearing tests and provision of aids, and information on hearing loss for those people who go through the NHS is not routinely collected, so any data held by the NHS on hearing loss would not be comprehensive.

However, Action on Hearing Loss estimates there to be around 945,000 people with hearing loss in Scotland, one in six of the population, and of those, 70% are over 70.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24990 on 12 September 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .