Child Disability Payment decision making guide

What are light-touch reviews

All award reviews carried out by Social Security Scotland are light-touch. This means that case managers should:

  • consider existing information where still relevant, and use previous decisions to avoid asking unnecessary questions
  • use the principles of decision-making that underpin our disability benefits system and all decisions, such as taking a trust-based approach
  • make use of appropriate decision-making tools, where needed, to further reduce the need for intrusive questions
  • in reviews that do require supporting information, take our usual approach to gathering that information, including taking a collaborative approach and establishing good cause, where appropriate.

Case managers must make their approach to carrying out reviews as light-touch as possible. How many steps a review will require depends on their complexity.

Award reviews might be more complex due to, for example:

  • The individual reports something unexpected, such as an unexpected change in needs, or a lack of change where a change had been expected
  • A new reported condition interacts with existing conditions, making it hard to establish the individual’s new level of need
  • The reported change in condition is relatively recent and the individual is still adapting to new treatment or their new level of need.

This list is not exhaustive.

Case managers should use both the:

to determine what approach to take.

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