Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
FOI Reference: FOI/202500467759
Date received: 27 May 2025
Date responded: 24 June 2025
Information requested
Request for Information 1: Since the establishment of Social Security Scotland, the number of times a recipient has received an overpayment, or a benefit they were not eligible to receive?
Request for Information 2: For each instance discovered I would like to know how the discovery was made, ie by Social Security Scotland, another Government agency or via the recipient notifying social security Scotland of an incorrect payment.
Request for Information 3: Can I also have this broken down by financial year and benefit type.
Request for Information 4: Can this also include the total amount overpaid through these errors.
Response
Request for Information 1:
Since the establishment of Social Security Scotland, there have been 71,533 overpayments.
Please note the figure provided may change depending on the status of any overpayments, including whether they are under appeal or review. This information represents a snapshot in time and is subject to change. As the status of overpayments is continually being reviewed and updated, the number in this response may differ from those in previous reports or publications.
Request 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 is because we currently do not record how each instance was discovered in an easily extractable format. Therefore, we would need to manually access over 70,000 records to understand how each overpayment was discovered.
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. It may fall under the scope if you review the attached information and pick a specific benefit in a specific timeframe where there are a limited number of overpayments. 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: https://www.foi.scot/how-do-i-ask
Request for Information 3 and 4:
Please find attached the information you requested.
Please note that the figures provided may change depending on the status of any overpayments, including whether they are under appeal or review. This information represents a snapshot in time and is subject to change. As the status of overpayments is continually being reviewed and updated, the numbers in this response may differ from those in previous reports or publications.
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.
FOI 202500467759