Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
FOI Reference: FOI/202300373647
Date received: 29 August 2023
Date responded: 26 September 2023
REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 (FOISA)
Thank you for your request dated 10 October 2022 under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).
Your request
You requested the following statistics regarding claims for Adult Disability Payment since August 2022:
Request for information 1: How many applications have been received and had any kind of decision?
Request for information 2: How many applications have been decided without any attempt to contact the applicant or their doctor or medical specialist advised on their application form, and how many of these particular applications have been successful?
Request for information 3: How many applications have you received where the claimant has stated they have any kind of "Cardiomyopathy" or "Heart Failure"?
Request for information 4: For question 3, how many of these applications have been decided without any attempt to contact the claimant or medical professionals declared on their application form and how many were successful?
Request for information 5: How many applications have been received with reference to "Long Covid" and how many have been successful?
Request for information 6: For question 5, how many of these applications have been decided without any attempt to contact the claimant or medical professionals declared on their application form?
Response to your request
Request for information 1:
Statistical information on the number of applications received and the outcomes of these applications are available at our Official Statistics Publication page here:
On the most recent publication - Social Security Scotland - Adult Disability Payment: high level statistics to 31 July 2023 – “Table 1 - Applications by Month” provides application numbers and initial decisions.
The next publication, covering up to the 31 October 2023, will be released in December 2023.
Under Section 25(1) of FOISA we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
Requests for information 2:
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This would require interrogation of each individual application to ascertain the information requested for each. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.
You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600, for example by narrowing the timeframe. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx
Request for information 3:
Social Security Scotland - Adult Disability Payment: high level statistics to 31 July 2023 – “Table 17 – Caseload by Condition” provides details of caseload for Adult Disability Payment by disability condition.
Based on figures up to the end of April 2023 we can provide the following breakdown:
Request for information 4:
Of the 57 applications received where cardiomyopathy was the primary disabling condition, 56 had been processed and had a decision made on them.
Applications don’t necessarily require contact to be made with the client or a medical practitioner to enable us to make a decision.
Of the 320 applications received where heart failure was the primary disabling condition, 316 had been processed and had a decision made on them.
Applications don’t necessarily require contact to be made with the client or a medical practitioner to enable us to make a decision.
Request for information 5:
Social Security Scotland - Adult Disability Payment: high level statistics to 31 July 2023 – “Table 17 – Caseload by Condition” provides details of caseload for Adult Disability Payment by disabling condition.
We record all cases of Covid-19 related conditions under the one category of Personal History of Covid-19. Based on figures up to the end of April 2023 we can provide the following breakdown:
For Personal History of Covid-19 there were 74 applications received where this was the primary disabling condition. Of those, 73 had been processed and had a decision made on them.
Applications don’t necessarily require contact to be made with the client or a medical practitioner to enable us to make a decision.
Request for information 6:
Of the 73 applications that had been processed and had a decision made on them, where Personal History of Covid-19 was the primary disabling condition, 12% were decided without contact having been made with either the client or a medical practitioner.
*this descriptor has been changed from the original response.
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.