Disability benefit applications completed with assistance from the Local Delivery Team: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

FOI Reference: FOI/202500484831
Date received: 16 September 2025
Date responded: 25 September 2025


Information requested

You asked for the following information in relation to Adult Disability Payment, Pension Age Disability Payment, and Child Disability Payment:

Request for information 1: the percentage of applications made with assistance from the Local Delivery Teams.

Request for information 2: the percentage of successful initial applications made with assistance from the Local Delivery Teams.

Request for information 3: the percentage of successful redeterminations from nil award made after initial application was made with assistance of Local Delivery Teams.

Request for information 4: the percentage of successful redeterminations resulting in an increase from initial decision after initial application was made with assistance of Local delivery teams.

Request for information 5: the percentage of successful appeals after initial application was made with assistance of Local delivery teams.

Request for information 6: the percentage of applications made with assistance from local delivery teams where clients preferred language isn't English.

Request for information 7: the percentage of applications made with assistance from local delivery teams where an interpreter service was used.

Response

Request for information 1 to 7:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested. This is because to locate and retrieve the information requested would require complex analysis. We have not undertaken any such analysis of the above and there is no requirement under legislation for authorities to create new information in response to a request.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.

I have included some information relating to Local Delivery appointment bookings since 2022 that you might find helpful relating to the percentage of appointments booked where an interpreter was requested. This is the information we held as of 18 September 2025.

2022

2023

2024

2025

Child Disability Payment

0.7%

1.12%

0.92%

0.80%

Adult Disability Payment

1.02%

1.20%

0.96%

0.76%

Pension Age Disability Payment

0%

0%

0%

0.20%

Please note that any one application can be subject to more than one Local Delivery appointment. These figures are based on management information for appointments booked, which may differ from the total number of appointments completed. This information has not been quality assured to the same standard as Official Statistics.

About FOI

Social Security Scotland is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. The Scottish Government also publishes responses to requests. You can view the responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.


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