ADHD Assessment Criteria and Statistics: FOI release

Information requested

Request for information 1:

Assessment Criteria:- Please provide the full assessment criteria used to evaluate applications for Adult Disability Payments where ADHD is the primary or secondary condition.

Request for Information 2:

Include any guidance documents, decision-making frameworks, or internal policies that outline how ADHD-related impairments are assessed in relation to daily living and mobility activities.

Request for Information 3: 

Statistics on ADHD Applications:- The total number of applications received for Adult Disability Payments where ADHD was identified as the primary or secondary condition, broken down by year since the introduction of ADP. 

Request for Information 4: 

The number of successful and unsuccessful applications for ADHD-related claims, including any available breakdown of reasons for rejection.

Request for Information 5: 

The total value of payments made to claimants with ADHD as the primary or secondary condition, broken down by year.

Response

Request for Information 1:

Adult Disability Payment is extra money to help you if you have a disability or long-term health condition that affects your everyday life. We refer to these things as your condition. Adult Disability Payment is made up of 2 parts :-

1. Daily Living.
2. Mobility.

Assessment Criteria for all conditions are the same and are outlined in our published decision-making guide. For ease the link to that guide has been included here –

Social Security Scotland - Decision Making Guide.

Request for Information 2:

In addition to applying the decision-making guidance to assess the client’s restriction/impairment we consider any additional information provided in the client’s application. We ensure any impairments noted by the clients are either directly caused by their condition or indirectly caused by medication or treatment the client undertakes to manage their condition.

Both NHS inform and British National Formulary (BNF) published guidance are used to do this respectively. The ADHD related pages for both resources have been provided below:

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | NHS inform
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder | Treatment summaries | BNF | NICE

Request for Information 3:

The table below relates to all new applications for Adult Disability Payment where ADHD has been recorded as either a primary or secondary condition. Condition information is recorded by Social Security Scotland staff during the decision-making process, as such there may be some applications that have been registered where the disabling condition has not yet been recorded.

Calendar Year	No of Applications received
2022	1,830
2023	4,739
2024	6,401
2025 to 24th April	925
Total	13,895

Request for information 4:

Breakdown on new applications authorised or denied where the case recorded indicates ADHD as the primary or secondary condition.

Total ADHD related Applications received	Authorised Applications	Denied Applications
13,895	8,204	5,497

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing some of the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This is because we do not separately record for management information a breakdown of reason for denial by condition. To locate and retrieve the information requested would require us to interrogate the 5,497 applications outlined above.

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.

Request for Information 5:

The table below includes the total values of payments for Adult Disability Payment where the client has the primary or secondary condition recorded as ADHD. This includes both new applicants and those who transferred from Department of Work and Pensions.

Calendar Year	Value of Payments
2022	£548,241.10
2023	£13,551,063.40
2024	£35,128,457.40
2025 to 31st January	£4,076,535.80

Please note the data for requests for information 3, 4 and 5 in tables above is drawn from management information, which has not been quality assured to the same level as that in our Official Statistics publication, and should therefore be treated with caution.

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.