The Welsh Basic Income Scheme
The two-year pilot intends to give each eligible care leaver a monthly payment of £1,280 (net) over twelve months with the aim of giving greater financial security during the vulnerable period of leaving care.
Care leavers will also have access to advice from the Citizen’s Advice Bureau during the pilot with the aim of improving financial literacy. More information on the scheme can be found at here.
The Welsh government is using the Bright Spots care leaver survey ( Your Life Beyond Care) as one of the baseline measures for the scheme. The survey originally coproduced with care leavers contains mainly numerical data with some questions allowing a free text response. It has been translated into Welsh and will be amended between October- November 2022 to include questions that focus more on the aims of the Welsh Basic Income Scheme. The aims of the scheme are:
- Improving well-being / psychological wellbeing
- Improving financial literacy / security
- Improving community cohesion / engagement
- Ameliorating the effects of poverty
- Improving access to labour market / education / life-long learning opportunities / volunteering and life skills
The new questions that will be added to the study will be co produced with care leavers. Three workshops with care leavers will be facilitated by Coram Voice and Voices from Care (Welsh charity)
The Welsh Government has contracted with Coram Voice to deliver the Your Life Beyond Care survey across Wales during the pilot. Julie Selwyn will be analysing the survey responses at four time points and working with the evaluation team. For information on how we collect and protect data see the privacy notice.