Suspension of assistance

This guidance applies to:

• Child Disability Payment (CDP)
• Adult Disability Payment (ADP)
• Pension Age Disability Payment (PADP)
• Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance (Scottish Adult DLA)

This guidance explains when case managers can use powers to temporarily suspend social security payments, see ‘When payment of assistance may be suspended’.

Suspension means temporarily not making payments to the individual that they are entitled to receive. The purposes of a suspension include:

• encouraging an individual to engage with Social Security Scotland
• reducing the risk that an individual will be overpaid assistance
• reducing the risk that an individual will experience financial abuse.

When a case manager is considering whether to suspend payments, they must have regard to the individual’s financial circumstances, see ‘Considering the individual’s financial circumstances’.

This guidance explains what information must be provided to the individual when their payments are suspended, see ‘Suspending payments’.

Individuals have a right to request a review of a decision to suspend assistance. This guidance explains how case managers should conduct a review of a decision to suspend assistance, see ‘Reviewing a decision to suspend payments’.

This guidance explains what happens when a suspension is ended, see ‘Ending a suspension’.

Given the potential significance of the impact of suspending payments for the individual, case managers should make use of the case discussion process where there are any doubts about how to proceed.

Responsibilities when suspending payments

When suspending payments of assistance, a case manager must:

• consider each case carefully on its merits, considering any factors that might make the decision unacceptable
• give the individual the opportunity to give any reasons they may have for not suspending payment of assistance
• be able to show that they acted reasonably in exercising their discretion (see Principles of Decision-Making for guidance on this)
• record the decision and advise the individual of the decision in writing (including the individual’s right to request a review of the decision to suspend their payments).

 If correspondence sent to the individual or someone acting on their behalf is returned to Social Security Scotland, the case manager must take steps to ensure that they have tried to trace the individual, such as:

• checking SPM or Searchlight to see if there is a new address
• telephoning the individual or their representative.

An individual may request a review of a decision to suspend, or they may also consider seeking a judicial review of the decision. This might be based on one or more of the following grounds:

• the decision to suspend was unlawful
• the case manager failed to use their discretion in a manner consistent with the law
• the decision was unreasonable
• the decision was improperly made
• the decision was delayed.

It is therefore important that case managers follow the guidance in this chapter when suspending payments or reviewing a decision to suspend.