Child Disability Payment

Social Security Scotland has just opened the Child Disability Payment – you can see here the official announcement. We are taking this opportunity to share some insights on the households who will be getting this new benefit and how we’ll adapt our platform to it.

The Child Disability Payment (and Disability Living Allowance) are benefits that help with the extra costs of looking after a child who needs much more looking after than a child of the same age who does not have a disability or has difficulties walking. Child Disability Payment replaces the UK Government’s Disability Living Allowance for children and is part of the wider Scottish devolved benefits transfer.

Existing claimants of Disability Living Allowance for children (around 52,000 in Scotland) will be automatically transferred to the Child Disability Payment, and new benefits claimants can make their applications directly on Social Security Scotland. The benefits rates and eligibility criteria has not changed, but new claimants can now apply online as well as by phone, post or face-to-face.

“In the months and years ahead thousands of families will benefit from our simplified and much less stressful system, which will treat everyone with dignity, fairness and respect. Social security is a shared investment in building a fairer Scotland and we encourage those who are eligible for support to apply.”

Minister for Social Security Ben Macpherson

Circumstances of benefits claimants

Claimants of Child Disability Payment are split between households with a single parent and couples with children. Whereas they normally have more than one child.

Level of support of benefits claimants

The following graphs detail the level of support that benefits claimants need to look after their needs (Caring) and the help they need getting around (Mobility).

Benefits entitlement

The average amount of Child Disability Payment for Scottish families is £377/month, which represents 13% of their total income. However, families with a child with a disability have a wide range of benefits available to them (e.g. Universal Credits, Child Benefits, Scottish Child Payment and Child Winter Heating) and their average benefits entitlement is £1,889, which represents 68% of their total income.

Our product roadmap

In the next weeks, we will incorporate the Child Disability Payment into our platform and all of our partners will have this new benefit automatically added to their benefit calculators. We will also add a dynamic questionnaire with the questions asked when applying for Child Disability Payment. This feature will help benefits claimants to better understand how their child’s condition compares with the assessment criteria, increase their confidence during the application process, and make sure that they get the support they need.

Get in touch to explore how we can work together to make it easier for people to get their disability benefits.