Social Security Scotland enabled clients to apply in advance of Scottish Child Payment being launched on 15 February 2021 to help manage the expected demand and allow more time to process applications.

Anyone applying during the application window was made aware that they would not receive a decision until after 15 February 2021, and that the first payments would be made to clients from the end of February 2021 onwards.

How processing time is calculated

Processing time is the number of days from the application being received to a decision being made or the application being withdrawn.

It includes time spent waiting to receive evidence from clients through online upload or by post, but does not include additional time to make payments.

It is calculated in working days. Weekends and public holidays are excluded from calculations, even if applications were processed by staff working overtime on these days.

The time of day that an application was received or processed is not taken into account.

Processing times for any Scottish Child Payment applications processed during the application window are calculated between the application date and the date the client advisor processed the application – meaning they do not include the final automatic eligibility check that was undertaken when the benefit officially launched on 15 February 2021.

Straight-through Processing

On 14 November 2022 a new feature titled ‘Straight-through Processing’ was introduced which allows certain applications which meet a specific set of criteria to be automatically passed to the payment approval stage.

This applies to Scottish Child Payment only applications and does not cover joint Best Start Grant, Best Start Foods and Scottish Child Payment applications.

Straight through processing allows the case management system to automatically process certain applications through to a decision without the need for client advisor intervention.

Exceptions

Processing times data does not include any applications that are flagged as having had a re-determination request because the decision date for these applications will represent the re-determination decision date, which can be some time after the original decision date.

The number of applications in the processing times table is therefore lower than the number of applications shown as processed or decided in other tables.

Re-determinations are a small proportion of the total applications processed, and the average processing times for applications that go on to re-determination or appeal compared to other applications should not differ from all other applications.

Therefore, removal of these should not affect the average processing times shown in the table.

Processing time is only calculated for applications that were decided within the period being reported on.

Data is presented by the month of decision rather than month the application was received.