Social Security Scotland - Workforce and Adult Disability Payment statistics: FOI release

Information requested

Request for information 1: How many staff work in health and social care for disability benefits?

Request for information 2: What grades are these staff?

Request for information 3: How many staff are in each grade?

Request for information 4: How many consultations have taken place in each year for Adult Disability Payment each year since the benefit was launched? Please break down the consultation numbers by year.

Response

Request for information 1

As of 31 December 2025, 239 staff worked in Health and Social Care, for Adult Disability Payment, Child Disability Payment and Pension Age Disability Payment.

It should also be noted that Social Security Scotland staff work flexibly across disability benefits and are deployed on an agile basis to meet demands. Therefore, the number of Health and Social Care staff working within disability payments as of 31 December 2025 should not be interpreted as a constant or historical staffing level for these benefits.

Request for information 2 and 3

Please see the following breakdown of those 239 staff, as of 31 December 2025:

Grade	Headcount (across all 3 benefits)	Full Time Equivalent
B2	204	181.3
B3	31	29.1
C1	4	4.0
Total	239	214.4

Request for information 4

Consultations between Health and Social Care Practitioners and Adult Disability Payment clients may take place via phone, video call, at a local public venue or in the client’s own home.

Please find the total number of Adult Disability Payment Consultations for each year below:

Year	Total number of Adult Disability Payment consultations
2022	642
2023	2052
2024	1685
2025	878
2026*	53

*2026 figure accurate as of 23 January 2026

Please note that this is management information and therefore has not been quality assured to the same standard as our Official Statistics: Social Security Scotland - Statistics.

Health and Social Care is an integral part of operational delivery, supporting decision making by providing advice via case discussion and quality assurance processes in relation to new applications, reviews, redeterminations and appeals across each of the disability benefits.

Consultations are undertaken where there is specific need for additional information during the application and decision making process, or where requested by our Health and Social Care practitioners or by the client themselves.

A proportion of Health and Social Care staff undertake consultation work as part of their broader caseload. This is not their primary function; rather, they focus on verifying and supporting decisions through assessment of a wide range of supporting information.

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.