Change of circumstances

There may be cases when an individual reports a change in circumstances at the same time as they request a re-determination. The way in which the Client Experience Team deal with the information will depend on the date when the change of circumstances occurred.

If an individual has entitlement to some level of payment and Social Security Scotland are aware of the possibility of a change in circumstances, they are obliged to both:

• carry out a determination without application
• process the re-determination request.

A re-determination looks at the individual’s circumstances again at the date of earlier determination to re-consider the facts on which the earlier determination was based. Nothing that happens after the date of the earlier determination can be considered within the re-determination assessment. This includes the individual’s circumstances changing.

In cases where the individual has some level of entitlement and:

• the change of circumstances occurred on or before the date of determination
• the individual had not included that information within their review
• the information provided would impact the assessment of their review.

The information provided by the individual relating to the change in circumstances can be included in the assessment at re-determination.

In cases where the individual has some level of entitlement and the change of circumstances occurred after the original determination was made, the re- 5 determination assessment would only take into account information that was relevant to the individual’s circumstances on the date of the original determination.