Tomorrow I'm going to meet in Glasgow with some friends and colleagues from civic Scotland to launch a new group dedicated to considering the future of welfare provision in Scotland.

Our new Scottish Leaders Welfare Group (SLWG) involves people from Scottish public life, including the churches and trades unions.

We will be visiting a Citizens Advice Bureau and talking to volunteer advisers and clients about the kind of problems that are experienced by people claiming benefits.

We will also be spending time with volunteers who run a local foodbank to find out what drives people to their door.

This group has come together to try and open up some space for an informed, evidence-based public discourse on welfare reform. A discourse that is not polluted by stereotypes of "strivers" and "scroungers", but which is rooted in the real experience of people who are in the benefits system, people who administer the benefits system, and people whose taxes pay for the benefits which, at some point in our lives, all of us receive.

We have developed a programme of activities for the coming year that will see us gathering evidence on the impact of welfare changes, speaking directly to people who are affected by them, and reporting on what we find to a range of politicians in Scotland and the UK

The Smith Commission report gives our work added impetus. Because although Smith will not result in the devolution of all welfare powers to Scotland, it will bring about the devolution of a range of benefits (disability benefits, carers' benefits, cold weather payment, funeral payment, Sure Start maternity grant, winter fuel payment, discretionary housing payments etc) as well as the powers to create new benefits and top-up reserved benefits.

So there clearly is time for a public debate around how any Scottish Government can use these enhanced powers in a way that respects the dignity of the people who rely on them.

The group is coming together at a time when the welfare system is in flux.

Lots of change is happening just now, and more is likely to follow with the implementation of the Smith Commission recommendations. Social security is a very complex area of policy, and in a world where employment is unstable for many, especially those on zero-hours contracts, great care must be taken to ensure that changes in social security provision do not have unintended consequences for those who lack the financial resilience to cope with them.

Our group is non-partisan and has no "political" agenda. We seek simply to speak truth to power, and will be engaging constructively with politicians of all parties. All of the respective organisations we represent are in some way involved in supporting people who rely on benefits - whether they are in work or unemployed, sick or disabled.

Each of our organisations has already gathered significant evidence of the impact of welfare changes on our separate constituencies, and we hope that by coming together now we can provide a strong voice for those who are vulnerable and excluded, and who are forced to rely on the benefits system.

We will welcome the aspects of welfare reform that enhance people's lives and make it easier for them to move in and out of work. We will also comment on those aspects of welfare reform that we find have a negative impact on benefit claimants.

We wish to see a social security system that is supported by all because it is fair to the people who claim benefits and to the people who pay for the benefits system. Fair in terms of how people in the system are treated, fair in terms of the financial support available, and fair in terms of the financial cost to the taxpayer.

Lord McFall is chairman of the new Scottish Leaders Welfare Group, which will be launched tomorrow. He was MP for Dumbarton from 1987-2010, and chairman of the Treasury Select Committee from 2001-2010.