Question reference: S6W-19448
- Asked by: Ruth Maguire, MSP for Cunninghame South, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 26 June 2023
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Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 July 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many parents or carers who are in receipt of Scottish Child Payment are under the age of 25, and whether it will publish this data.
Answer
Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on Scottish Child Payment applications, payments and an estimate of the number of children actively in receipt of the payment.
While Social Security Scotland has not published the number of parents or carers in receipt of Scottish Child Payment to date, development is currently underway to do so in the next edition of the Scottish Child Payment Official Statistics publication. This will also include the number of parents or carers actively in receipt of Scottish Child Payment by age group. This next edition will cover the period to the end of June 2023 and is due to be published on 29 August 2023.
As of March 2023, around 12% (37,560) of applications for Scottish Child Payment were made by parents or carers aged under 25. It is important to note that these statistics relate to applications, not receipts of Scottish Child Payment. This information can be found in the latest Scottish Child Payment Official Statistics publication:
https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications