Hayley Bennett, Morgan Currie, and Alli Spring, The University of Edinburgh
Social security policies have featured heavily in anti-poverty debates in Scotland for the last ten years including urgent questions around Scottish Government powers, social justice approaches to welfare provision, people’s experiences of life on a low-income, and levels of benefit entitlements. Much less in the spotlight are critical questions about implementation approach for social security, specifically digital tools.
In this blog, we draw attention to research on the digital welfare state, including the design and use of digital interfaces, data sharing, and algorithmic instruments. We argue that examining the digital welfare state is essential for understanding contemporary social security policies and future developments.
What is the digital welfare state?
There is no escaping the growth of technology in welfare state administration. Researchers across the world are exploring ‘digital welfare states,’ a term that includes databases, interfaces (such as websites and apps), backstage data processing and data sharing, alongside advanced technologies such as machine learning for automated or assisted decision-making and artificial intelligence (AI).
Advocates of the digital welfare state, including big-tech companies, argue such tools better deliver social security payments, manage eligibility processes, or monitor citizen engagement with services and interfaces. For some, the future for public services requires digital solutions to social problems – after all, we have more available data than ever, and with that, greater opportunities to identify and address social issues and inequalities. But as our research shows, designing and implementing these technologies is not straightforward, with many ethical dimensions to consider.
The ADWA project
Over the past nine months our Advancing Digital Welfare Administration (ADWA) project has been drawing attention to the rise of digital welfare relating to social security and anti-poverty support in Scotland. ADWA brings together the findings and recommendations from three research projects (Automating Universal Credit, Navigating Digital Welfare and Data Benefits).
Our driving question is: What do good digital tools for the welfare state look like and how do these align with Scottish Social Security principals?
In spring 2026, we hosted twenty-five members of civil society and third sector organisations, representatives from the Scottish Government, the Administrative Fairness Lab, Improvement Scotland, and fellow academics and researchers for a day-long event dedicated to understanding what we might mean by good digital welfare tools.
A key goal of the event was to consider how these technologies could align with Scottish Social Security principles – to understand how technical design can be interconnected with policy goals based on human rights. The workshop combined research reports with attendee experiences to form collective views on a digital welfare system in accordance with the Scottish Government’s seven Scottish Social Security charter principles.
Across the design and deployment stages of digital welfare administration, participants spotlit the importance of seven key principles that we have worked into a guide:
There are four key points designers and policy makers should take away from these principles:
First, designers should always consider both the purpose and the appropriateness of digital welfare tools and sensitive data collection. The aims of digital welfare should be to make support more accessible to those most in need and to reduce inequalities.
Second, digital welfare tools should align with legislation and up-to-date inequalities research. We call for designers to collaborate with a range of partners and evidence from civil society, service providers, academic and independent researchers, and service users (i.e. people in receipt of particular benefits or services under reform).
Third, designers should also explore ways to minimise claimant administrative burden. This is more tricky than one might expect: for example, designers should not only consider the digital tools used in their own workplaces, but to also consider how individuals might interact with other public agencies’ digital tools simultaneously. How might a digital welfare state better support joined-up service delivery to reduce barriers to support? At the same time, designers must limit sensitive data collection beyond what is necessary.
Finally, digital welfare systems should be transparent to users about data collection in terms of front-end services and back-end data flows. Designers should develop digital welfare with transparent systems of accountability, especially where private sector organisations are involved in data collection and management.
Taken together the seven principles offer a framework for ethical, informed and rights-centered approaches to digital welfare, and so support the Scottish Government’s commitment to administering a dignified, fair, respectful system.
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The ADWA website: https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/research/research-project/understanding-and-shaping-digital-welfare-state-scotland
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Advancing Digital Welfare Administration report
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Or get in touch with Dr Hayley Bennett, Social Policy, University of Edinburgh Bennett@ed.ac.uk and/or Dr Morgan Currie, Science and Technology Studies, University of Edinburgh Morgan.Currie@ed.ac.uk
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