The Scottish Government set out to create a brand-new social security agency, Social Security Scotland, after the transfer of key welfare powers from the UK Government.
Following the transfer of key welfare powers under the Scotland Act of 2016, the Scottish Government faced the unprecedented challenge of building a new national social security system from scratch. This included establishing Social Security Scotland while developing the digital infrastructure and services to support millions of people across Scotland. The program needed to deliver a modern, user-centered platform that now supports almost two million people accessing 18 benefits, enabled by a reusable case management system, new digital access channels and integrations with UK Government bodies.
A critical challenge was the safe and secure transfer of the awards of more than 700,000 people who were receiving benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions to the new system, ensuring no interruptions to their payments. Central to this effort was a commitment to treating people with dignity, fairness and respect, principles that guided every aspect of the program, from design to service and delivery. All of this needed to be achieved within a complex policy environment, with tight timelines, cross-government dependencies and the need to build organizational capability alongside technology.
To deliver this transformation, the Scottish Government partnered with IBM Consulting® in a long-term, collaborative relationship to design and implement a new national social security system and establish Social Security Scotland. Together, they built a modern, digital, user-centered platform to deliver 18 benefits. This was supported by a reusable case management system capable of handling diverse eligibility rules and operational processes. This close partnership enabled joint problem solving at scale, combining policy expertise with technical delivery to successfully navigate one of the most complex public sector transformations in the UK.
Building on this collaborative foundation, the program adopted a fundamentally human-centered approach, engaging directly with thousands of people with lived experience of the benefits system and partner organizations across Scotland to co-design services. Insights from this research informed both service design and policy decisions, ensuring that the system reflected the principles of dignity, fairness and respect at every stage of the user journey.
To deliver this vision at scale, the program adopted a modern DevOps approach from the outset, using automated CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code, using tools such as IBM Terraform®, to enable repeatable, scalable deployments and faster delivery. This supported the development of a cloud-first platform, hosted on AWS® and designed to deliver secure, accessible digital experiences for people in Scotland through Adobe®-powered interfaces.
The platform also incorporated cloud financial management capabilities, enabling transparency and control over cloud spend. This included the use of tools such as IBM Apptio® Cloudability to support cost optimization and financial governance at scale. At its core, the platform was built on a robust enterprise case management platform, providing a robust foundation for managing complex benefit rules and case lifecycles, alongside enterprise technologies such as IBM Db2®, IBM WebSphere® Application Server, and IBM Data Replication.
Given the sensitivity of personal data, the platform was designed with strong principles of data control, security, and interoperability. By enabling secure data sharing across UK Government systems, while maintaining clear governance over how data is stored, accessed, and processed, the solution supported a high level of digital sovereignty and trust. This included migrating development and operations into Scottish Government–controlled cloud environments, strengthening ownership, governance, and long-term control over critical workloads and data.
This cloud-first, yet carefully governed approach, allowed the Scottish Government to innovate while maintaining strict control over personal information. This approach also enabled the creation of a modern data foundation, supporting improved management reporting, enhanced fraud detection through centralized data capabilities, and near real-time data sharing across government departments, helping to drive more coordinated and responsive public services.
At the heart of the program was a large-scale Agile delivery model, bringing together a globally distributed, collaborative team of IBM and Scottish Government professionals. Both organizations worked in a blended fashion, sharing accountability, co-locating where possible, and maintaining a continuous delivery rhythm across multiple workstreams simultaneously. This allowed the program to respond to complexity and change at pace, while keeping people at the center of every decision.
A critical element of this model was the deliberate and structured transfer of knowledge and capability into the Scottish Government itself. IBM embedded experienced subject matter experts directly into product teams, covering everything from end-to-end software delivery to user-centered design. This wasn’t simply about delivering a solution; it was about ensuring the Scottish Government could own, evolve and continuously improve its services long after delivery.
This commitment to lasting capability has had a reach far beyond the program itself, strengthening the depth of experience and expertise across other departments of the Scottish Government. Government teams from Canada, Finland and Iceland have sought out Scotland’s experience to understand how a program of this scale and complexity was designed, governed and delivered. For IBM, this stands as powerful recognition that the collaborative, Agile-first approach we brought to this partnership created a model others now look to follow.
With the transformation complete, the impact has been significant. The program demonstrated rapid time-to-value, with the first benefit delivered 11 months after the IBM team started, alongside a newly built AWS cloud-hosted estate. This serves to highlight the agility of the platform and the effectiveness of the delivery model in responding quickly to policy priorities. This rapid delivery was enabled by a scalable engineering model, including automated deployment pipelines and parallelized testing, which supported complex testing and release delivery phases.
Today, almost two million people receive support delivered by Social Security Scotland and a platform designed to scale to meet future demand. Client experience has also stood out significantly, with over 75% of clients reporting a “very good” experience, and 91% confirming they were treated with kindness.
Beyond service delivery, the transformation has enabled Scotland to take greater control of how social security is administered. By establishing its own digital platform and data infrastructure, the Scottish Government has reduced reliance on legacy UK systems and strengthened governance over how citizen data is managed, shared, and used, supporting a more transparent, secure, and accountable system.
The success of the program is underpinned by a modern, reusable digital architecture built on cloud-native principles and supported by automated deployment and environment provisioning capabilities. The shared case management platform enables the delivery of 18 benefits from common foundations, reducing the cost and time required to introduce new services.
With a strong digital foundation in place, Social Security Scotland is well positioned to continuously improve and expand its services. The platform enables ongoing innovation in digital delivery, ensuring the system can evolve alongside changing citizen needs while remaining grounded in its founding principles of dignity, fairness, and respect.
Social Security Scotland, established in 2018, is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government founded on principles of dignity, fairness and respect for all. With a Head Office on Dundee waterfront and another key building in Glasgow city center, they deliver 18 benefits to people across Scotland supporting families, children, disabled people, elderly people, carers, young people starting a job and people who need help to heat their homes.
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