FOI/202600510254 · FOI · not held
Social Security Scotland - Scottish Child Payment statistics: FOI release
Information requested
Please can you provide a table showing the following information regarding families claiming the Scottish Child Payment (SCP).
Your request for information 1: The number of eligible children in each family ranging from four to 10 and over inclusive
Your request for information 2: The number of families claiming SCP for each of the family sizes listed in (1)
Your request for information 3: The SCP income per family
Your request for information 4: The total cost of the payments made to families for each family size
You asked us to refer to the below table published by the Times in March 2026 when considering your request:
Source: The Times (March 2026) Scottish Child Payment - large families
Eligible children Families claiming SCP Income per family Cost to taxpayer 4 6,211 £5,647.20 £35,074,759.20 5 1,511 £7,059.00 £10,666,149.00 6 377 £8,470.80 £3,193,491.60 7 108 £9,882.60 £1,067,320.80 8 30 £11,294.40 £338,832.00 9 17 £12,706.20 £216,005.40 10+ 7 £14,118.00 £98,826.00 TOTAL £50,655,384.00
Response
Response to your request for information 1:
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested. This is because we do not hold information on the number of eligible children.
We do not hold information relating to the number of eligible children in each family ranging from 4 to 10 years old and over inclusive. This is because we only hold information on children actively in receipt of Scottish Child Payment at a given point in time. See the information presented for (2) below.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.
Response to your request for information 2:
The below table represents the number of parents or carers with 4 or more children receiving Scottish Child Payment (SCP) as of 31 December 2025:
Number of children actively benefiting from SCP Number of parent or carers in receipt of SCP 4 5,941 5 1,422 6 350 7 116 8 30 9 9 10 plus 4
This is the most up to date information held at the time of your request on 10 March 2026.
Response to your request for information 3 and 4:
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.
This is because Social Security Scotland only hold information for Scottish Child Payment which shows each parent or carer’s eligibility at the time of data extraction.
The eligibility information is subject to change as entitlement changes, for example a child may age out of eligibility. The extracted information does not allow identification of when each child was added to, or removed from, individual payment cases.
The information provided is a snapshot at a point in time. It does not show that these clients remained in receipt of Scottish Child Payment for a full year, or that the number of children that a client is receiving Scottish Child Payment for remains constant for an entire year.
The “income per family” and “cost per family” figures included in the table you referenced from The Times were not provided by Social Security Scotland. Social Security Scotland has not validated the data published by The Times, makes no assessment of its accuracy, and is not able to provide the information presented in that table. The data we hold does not show this.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested.
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