Social Security Scotland Carer Support Payment statistics: FOI release

Information requested

This request relates to the Carer Support Payment statistics published by Social Security Scotland on 26 November 2025 ("Carer Support Payment Statistics to 30 September 2025"), to the underlying data, including but not limited to the processing time data presented in the main publication and supplementary Table 5.

Please provide the following recorded information:

Request for information 1:

Copies of any internal guidance, methodology documents, technical notes, quality assurance documentation, or staff instructions held by Social Security Scotland that define or describe how the "date received" is established and recorded for the purpose of calculating processing times reported in the Carer Support Payment statistics publications.

This should include any documentation that specifies:

(a) the event that triggers the recording of the "date received" for paper applications, telephone applications, and online applications respectively; and

(b) any difference between the date an application physically arrives at the address provided by Social Security Scotland (for paper applications) and the date recorded as "received" for statistical reporting.

(c) any holding or delay arrangements with Royal Mail or other organisations, that in any way affect what would otherwise be direct and immediate delivery to the address provided by Social Security Scotland (for paper applications).

Request for information 2:

Copies of any recorded data or pre-existing documents held by Social Security Scotland showing the distribution of Carer Support Payment processing times for the calendar year 2025 (or for the closest equivalent reporting period for which such records exist), including but not limited to:

(a) the maximum processing time recorded;

(b) the count of applications with processing times exceeding 100 working days, 150 working days, and 200 working days; and

(c) any frequency distributions, percentile breakdowns, or outlier analyses produced for internal management, quality assurance, or reporting purposes.

Response

Request for information 1a:

The event that triggers the recording of the “date received” for all Carer Support Payment (CSP) application channels is the submission of the application in our case management system, SPM.

Request for information 1b:

Please see the attached Document 1: Client Adviser internal guidance

This document is a copy of the Client Adviser internal guidance which details how to create a Carer Support Payment application in SPM from a paper application.

Paper applications are first received by Social Security Scotland’s mailroom, where they are scanned and uploaded as digital documents. A Client Adviser then extracts the information from the scanned document and enters it into our case management system SPM.

The time taken to complete this process accounts for the difference between the date a paper application physically arrives at Social Security Scotland and the date the application is created in the 
case management system.

The latter date is recorded as the “date received” for the purposes of Carer Support Payment (CSP) statistical publications. We are using the date an application is submitted in our case management system because where we are backdating an application, the “application date” is populated with the entitlement start date in place of the date we received the application.

We are currently unable to quantify the time difference between these two dates, or to assess the impact this may have on reported processing times. Work is underway to resolve this issue.

Please see the attached Document 2: Carer Support Payment Core Data extract request

This document is a copy of the original request for development of Carer Support Payment Core Data extract which is used as the base data for statistical publication. This document highlights that we only report what is being recorded in SPM and perform no transformation on these date fields.

Request for information 1c:

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

This is because there are no holding arrangements with Royal Mail or other organisations. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the
information you have requested.

All our mail is delivered on the same day it is screened by Royal Mail, the only disruption to this would be in exceptional circumstances such as adverse weather etc.

There are known changes to Royal Mail delivery of 2nd class mail. This information is publicly available in relation of the Royal Mail USO changes - Protecting the postal service for the future 

Request for information 2a, b, and c:

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.

This is because no analysis has been undertaken to determine the longest processing time or to identify applications with processing times specifically over 150 and 200 working days.

Further processing times breakdowns are not available without specialist staff members designing specific coding to undertake the required complex analysis, something which we are not required to do under FOISA.

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

Social Security Scotland regularly publish Carer Support Payment statistics. Table 5 within the latest publication details monthly processing times up to 31 March 2026, including those which exceeded 100 working days.

Please find attached the following document:

Document 3: Quality Assurance document for processing times for Carer Support Payment publication.

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.

FOI 202600514793 - Information Released - Documents

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