Child Disability Payment: Applications and Payments

Further information on new applications and clients who have had their awards transferred, award types, processing times, reviews, re-determinations and caseload can be found in the associated publication.

The application stage for Child Disability Payment involves a two part application process. The part 1 form gathers key personal details of the client. The impact of the client's disability is detailed in part 2 of the application form. The exception to this is for applicants applying under the special rules for terminal illness, where there is only one part to the application, to make the process simpler and quicker. The number of new applications received is referring to the number of part 1 applications received.

Not assessed

Department for Work and Pension publish information about Disability Living Allowance in the DWP benefits statistics releases.

These statistics are updated every 3 months. These updates coincide with our quarterly publications on Child Disability Payment. These can be found at the Social Security Scotland website

Data are collected, validated and published in as timely a manner as possible in accordance with the Statistics Code of Practice. Data are published quarterly and can be found on the Scottish Government website.

The Scotland Act 2016 devolved new powers to the Scottish Parliament in relation to social security, including responsibility for disabled benefits which had been administered to Scottish claimants by the Department for Work and Pensions. On 1st April 2020, executive competency for Disability Living Allowance was transferred to Scottish Government. There is a transitional period to allow administration of these benefits to be transferred, during which the Department for Work and Pensions will continue to administer Disability Living Allowance for Children on Social Security Scotland's behalf.
The Child Disability Payment pilot launched on the 26 July for new applicants living in Dundee City, Na h-Eileanan Siar and Perth and Kinross. On 22 November, Child Disability Payment launched nationwide to all new applicants living in Scotland. The case transfer process, where individual ongoing awards of Disability Living Allowance for Children are replaced by an award of Child Disability Payment, began on 11 October 2021.

Further details about the benefit can be found on the Scottish Government website.

1. Rounding and disclosure control
   
   Figures have been rounded to the nearest five for applications received and authorised. The total value of payments has been rounded to the nearest ten pounds. This is for disclosure control. Data has been suppressed where it would disclose fewer than five applications.
   
   2) Missing and duplicate applications
   
   The data comes from 100% data cut of the case management system.
   
   The data cut was checked for applications where the applicant was missing a National Insurance number. A small number of these were found and represented temporary 'prospect cases', which are created when clients contact Social Security Scotland without a National Insurance number, and are later replaced once a National Insurance number is received from the applicant. Any such applications are therefore duplicates and are excluded from the statistics.
   
   3) Authorisation and Payment
   For all applications, the date that applications were processed by client advisors is the date used to produce statistics of processed applications by month. After applications are authorised for payment by client advisors, the decision is approved by a manager, and then a payment is issued. In some cases, payments will be issued on the same day that payments are authorised by client advisors, however in other cases there can be a delay before payments are issued. Clients should receive money in their nominated account within four working days after payment is issued.
   In this publication, we report on the total value of payments that have been issued by the end of each month and not the payments successfully received by the applicants.
   

The data used to produce these statistics are extracted from the Social Security case management system. Extracts from this system are also used on a daily basis for internal reporting within Social Security Scotland. As such, the data is checked daily for consistency with previous extracts (i.e. do applications, decisions and payments figures increase as expected over time, and are they in proportion to each other) and compared to other sources of information such as the number of payment instructions reported by the finance team.

Quality assurance and cleaning has been carried out on the variables used in the official statistics:

* Checking for duplicate and missing application references
* Checking application dates, processing times and payment times are within the expected ranges
* Check applicant dates of birth are within the expected range
* Check that payment date is present where a payment value is present
* Checking postcodes that do not match to local authorities

Once the data is aggregated and copied into the publication and supporting Excel tables, the final statistics are quality assured by a different member of the statistics team.

Revisions and corrections to previously published statistics are dealt with in accordance with the Scottish Government Statistician Group corporate policy statement on revisions and corrections.

Figures have been rounded to the nearest five for applications received and authorised. The total value of payments has been rounded to the nearest ten pounds. This is for disclosure control.

Data has been suppressed where it would disclose fewer than five applications.