Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
FOI Reference: FOI/202300345410
Date received: 28 February 2023
Date responded: 28 March 2023
Request
The number of households that have as of today (28 February 2023) received the Winter Heating Payment.
The number of eligible households that have still to receive the Winter Heating Payment, as of 28 February 2023.
Response
I have interpreted your request as relating to the number of persons who have received the Winter Heating Payment. Winter Heating Payment is a yearly payment of £50 that’s paid to eligible individuals and as such we do not hold the information broken down by household.
To ensure the safety and security of the payments, payments began in small batches. By 28 February 2023, 34,261 people had received the Winter Heating Payment and a further 365,303 eligible clients were to be paid.
An update on the payment of the Winter Heating Payment was provided to the Scottish Parliament and is available to view here:
https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers/question?ref=S6W-16208
The number of eligible clients was calculated using information which was supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions on 31 January 2023. This is part of the agreed transfer which sees Winter Heating Payment replace the Department for Work and Pensions Cold Weather Payment in Scotland.
Winter Heating Payment is reliant on data supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Scottish Government is working with the DWP on assessing the feasibility of bringing forward payments of Winter Heating Payment in future years.
We intend to publish statistics for Winter Heating Payment on 6 June 2023 and then on an annual basis in future. These will be available at our statistics publication page here:
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.