Number of people in receipt of benefits: FOI release

Information requested

Request for information 1: How many people in Scotland receive some sort of benefit in Scotland from either Social Security Scotland or DWP?

Request for information 2: How many people in Scotland don't?

Response

Request for information 1:

In financial year 2024/25 (1 April 2024 to 31 January 2025) so far, 921,918 clients have been paid directly by Social Security Scotland.

This figure includes clients paid for the following benefits; Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods, Funeral Support Payment, Young Carer Grant, Job Start Payment, Child Winter Heating Payment, Scottish Child Payment, Child Disability Payment, Adult Disability Payment, Winter Heating Payment, Carer Support Payment and Pension Age Disability Payment.

Please note that clients who receive more than one benefit from Social Security Scotland are counted once. The full count of clients paid in financial year 2024/25 is planned to be published later this year.

This figure has been provided as management information and has not been quality assured to the same level as official statistics.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have some of the information you have requested. The latest published Carer’s Allowance Supplement statistics showed that 88,615 carers received payment in the 2024/25 financial year so far, covering the April 2024 eligibility period. The number of clients paid analysis does not include Carer’s Allowance Supplement as the data available for that payment cannot currently be linked to the data extracts for the benefits listed above. Therefore, we are currently unable to identify how many of those clients are already counted within our overall measure of clients paid. The latest Carer’s Allowance Supplement statistics for 2024/25 will be published on 18 February 2025 and will be available on our statistics webpage.

We also do not hold information relating to number of clients paid by the Department for Work and Pensions. You may wish to reach out to the Department for Work and Pensions directly to request that information. You may find some information which is helpful to you on the Stat-Xplore website.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.

We do publish parallel publications which cover Carer’s Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Severe Disablement Allowance and Personal Independence Payment. The latest figures for these are available on our statistics webpage. The next figures will be published on 18 February 2025 and will cover up to August 2025.

Request for information 2:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not hold the information you have requested. We do not capture information on the number of people who are not in receipt of Social Security Scotland benefits.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.