Our latest Client and Diversity statistics

Official statistics have been published on Social Security Scotland’s Client Diversity and Equalities analysis covering the period 1 June to 30 November 2020.

Today’s publication (Tuesday, 30 April) provides information on client diversity and equalities data for Best Start Grant, Best Start Foods, Funeral Support Payment, Young Carer Grant, Job Start Payment and Scottish Child Payment.

Clients complete an equality monitoring and feedback form when applying for benefits. There is a ‘prefer not to say’ option as part of the document.

Equality information is collected to enable the organisation to better understand how different groups are engaging with our benefits and to inform improvements to services. This helps the evaluation of Scottish Government policy and Social Security Scotland’s delivery of benefits.

The analysis is intended to inform conversation with expert stakeholders, including our external Equality Network. This group has representation from 18 organisations.

The insight from the analysis and Equality Network group helps us understand trends, and if there are areas where improvement can be made. They will also help to identify additional actions as part of our effort to continually improve the service provided for all clients.

Around 2% of applications across all our benefits over the analysis period has been from people living outside Scotland, and the majority of these are denied. This can have an impact on approval rates for some of the equalities groups.

The publication is available on the Scottish Government website.