FOI/202600508300 · FOI · cost limit
Social Security Scotland benefit applicants awaiting approval statistics: FOI release
Information requested
How many applicants have died awaiting decisions on whether they will receive benefits in each of the last five years, with a breakdown per year, per what benefit they were waiting on, and how long each delay was?
Response
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing some of the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600.
This is because for a number of our benefits, we would need to manually access each case to establish if the applicant died prior to a decision being made on their application. 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. Due to the volume of cases this relates to, we are unable to advise on how you may be able to narrow down the scope of your request. You may 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
We hold extracted data for applicants, for our disability benefits and Carer Support Payment, who died while awaiting a decision about whether they will receive a benefit.
Benefit 2022 2023 2024 2025 Adult Disability Payment 121 378 246 195 Child Disability Payment 4 8 3 3 Pension Age Disability Payment N/A N/A 11 301 Carer Support Payment - Carer N/A N/A 4 30
It should be noted that all of this data is drawn from management information, which has not been quality assured to the same level as that in our Official Statistics publication. As such, these figures should be interpreted with caution.
Also attached are details of the waiting times for disability benefits and Carer Support Payment submitted by individuals who passed away before receiving a decision. The wait time is recorded from the date of the initial application to the date of death. Again, this is management information and therefore has not been quality assured to the same standard as Official Statistics: Statistics - Social Security Scotland
Please note that for our disability benefits, we are only able to make a decision on an application once the Part 2 form has been submitted and all necessary supporting information has been gathered, (except in the case of SRTI applications when a Part 2 form is not required).
While we cannot comment on individual cases, in the cases where there have been long periods to process the application, there were a number of factors that impacted on wait times, such as verifying identity and awaiting supporting information.
We are committed to giving people timely decisions, while allowing sufficient time to ensure the correct information is in place to get decisions right the first time.
Where a client notifies of us of a terminal illness, Social Security Scotland aims to process cases identified as being eligible under the Special Rules for Terminal Illness (SRTI) within 7 working days of receiving a completed application form and a BASRiS form. We regularly publish information on SRTI processing which can be found within Table 10 of our most recent Adult Disability Payment statistical publication
You may find it helpful to refer to our latest publications which contains a range of information on our benefits, including the average median decision time. Our latest publications for Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability payment can be found using the following links:
Adult Disability Payment statistics to 31 January 2026 - Social Security Scotland
Child Disability Payment: statistics to 31 December 2025 - Social Security Scotland
Pension Age Disability Payment statistics to 31 January 2026 - Social Security Scotland
Carer Support Payment statistics and Carer's Allowance Supplement statistics to 31 December 2025 - Social Security Scotland
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.
Detected exemption language
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.