Rounding and disclosure control

Application and outcome figures have been rounded to the nearest five for disclosure control.

Data has been suppressed where it would disclose fewer than five applications or payments.

Incorrect application dates

Quality assurance checks highlighted that a small number of cases (50) had an application date prior to the benefit opening for applications on 9 November 2020.

These cases were confirmed by operational colleagues to be genuine applications with an application date entered in error.

For the purpose of this publication, these cases have been reported as having been received in the month of November 2020.

Missing and duplicate applications

The data comes from a 100% data cut of the case management system.

The data cut was checked for applications where the field relating to application date and the outcome and payment of the application was blank.

These applications represent temporary ‘prospect cases’, which are created when clients contact Social Security Scotland without a National Insurance number, and are later replaced once a National Insurance number is received from the applicant.

Any such applications are therefore duplicates and are excluded from the statistics.

Unverified information from application form

Information about the client and their children is taken from the application form completed by the client or by a client advisor over the telephone.

This information may contain errors because it has not been verified by comparison to other sources of information such as records held by the Department for Work and Pensions.

This means for example that it is possible to have authorised applications where the original application form did not include details of any eligible children, because the date of birth of any children was originally incorrect but was later amended as the application was processed.