Scottish Child Payment queries: FOI release

Information requested

Request for information 1: How many people have been overpaid Scottish Child Payment due to loss of qualifying benefit when the client has not reported this to Social Security Scotland?

Request for information 2: How many women have been overpaid Scottish Child Payment due to loss of qualifying benefit when the client has not reported this to Social Security Scotland?

Request for information 3: How many people have fraudulently claimed SCP when not in receipt of a qualifying benefit?

Request for information 4: Would there have been a trigger/is there a trigger on Social Security Scotland’s systems to stop SCP payments due to loss of qualifying benefit (other than the client notifying us)?

Response

Request for information 1:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information processed by our Client Services Delivery area would exceed the upper cost limit of £600.

Our case management system does not currently capture information on overpayments generated by the agency as a whole. To provide you with this we would have to manually interrogate every overpayment case to understand which had been due to a loss of qualifying benefit.

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

It is unlikely that your question could be narrowed to allow the costs to be brought below £600, however you may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: https://www.foi.scot/how-do-i-ask

You may find it helpful to know that from a limited analysis we can tell you that we hold record of 5,679 cases of overpayment of Scottish Child Payment due to undeclared loss of qualifying benefit, that have been corrected from October 2022 to end of March 2025.

For additional information I have linked Social Security Scotland’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2023-2024, this includes some Error information that you may find useful, specifically on page 56.

Annual Report and Accounts 2024

Request for information 2:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested. We do not record gender of clients within our case management system as we do not need to know this in order to process our benefits.

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

Request for information 3:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.

Social Security Scotland does not decide when fraud has been committed. Therefore, we do not classify a behaviour as fraud until conviction, or the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service has decided on a non-court disposal as an alternative to prosecution.

To date there has not been a conviction of fraud for a Scottish Child Payment case.

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

Request for information 4:

Social Security Scotland can receive an electronic trigger/notification from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) or His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to prompt us of a possible update to client circumstances.

One of these prompts may relate to ‘Qualifying Benefit’. These notifications are considered an addition to the client’s duty to report, not an alternative.

You may find it helpful to know that on award letters for Scottish Child payment the following text is also included –

“If your circumstances change

You must let us know straight away if your circumstances change.

This could be if:
• you move house outside of Scotland
• you’re no longer looking after a child
• you either have a new partner living with you, or a partner has stopped living with you.

You must tell us if you or your partner stop getting any of these benefits:
• Universal Credit
• Child Tax Credit
• Working Tax Credit
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)

You must also tell us if you alone are no longer named on one of these benefits:
• Pension Credit
• Income Support
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

Telling us about a change of circumstances
You can tell us about a change of circumstances by:
• using our online form at mygov.scot/if-your-circumstances-change
• calling us free on 0800 182 2222.

For more details on the other ways you can tell us about change of circumstances, go to mygov.scot/ifyour- circumstances-change

If you do not tell us about your change of circumstances

If your circumstances change and you do not tell us, you may get payments when you do not meet the conditions. You may also be paid too much.

If this happens, we may:
• reduce your payments in the future
• ask you to pay the money back.

If you do not tell us about these changes, you may be prosecuted. Section 72 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 says it’s an offence not to tell us about a change in circumstances that we’ve asked you to tell us about.”

Any notifications we receive or send do not remove a client’s duty to report any loss of qualifying benefit. As outlined in paragraph 27 of The Scottish Child Payment Regulations 2020 Scottish Ministers can place a duty to report a change of circumstances on the client. The duty is placed on clients via the declaration in the application form and the notification contained in correspondence to the client.

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.