Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
FOI Reference: FOI/202300348573
Date received: 23 March 2023
Date responded: 19 April 2023
Request
This request is in relation to Social Security Scotland and Child Disability Payment.
Please provide the policy and/or guidance relating to changing of responsibility for a child in receipt of Child Disability Payment.
Please provide the policy and/or guidance relating to backdated payments for a child in receipt of Child Disability Payment.
Please provide the policy and/or guidance relating to circumstances where two parents/persons who are attempting to claim for a child in receipt of Child Disability Payment including the criteria for how it is decided/determined which person/parent should be deemed as the primary carer or responsible person thus the application be changed into that person’s name.
Please provide the policy and/or guidance relating to someone continuing to receive payments when it is clear they should not be and the entitled child is not benefiting from those payments.
Response
Some guidance relevant to your request is published in our decision making guide, which is available here:
https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/guidance-resources/guidance/decision-making-guide
Specifically, this part of the guide relates to an applicant being responsible for a child:
I have also attached a document with the relevant internal guidance which relates to your request. Under each question I have given the relevant guidance, some information may be included twice as it relates to several different questions within the request.
This has been copied from an internal knowledge management system and as such may not be formatted correctly in all circumstances. For ease of reading, each of your questions are in bold and underlined, and below each question is the relevant guidance.
With regards to the fourth request regarding payments being made to someone that is no longer entitled to them, our teams are currently reviewing and developing finalised guidance on dealing with this type of scenario and cases are dealt with on a case by case basis.
Where the guidance references legislation this can be found published online at the links below:
Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2018/9/contents/enacted
Children (Scotland) Act 1995 - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/36/contents
The Disability Assistance for Children and Young People (Scotland) Regulations 2021 - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/sdsi/2021/9780111049402/contents
About FOI
Social Security Scotland is committed to publishing responses to requests. The Scottish Government also publishes responses to requests. You can view the responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.