People who receive Scottish Child Payment and qualify for Best Start Grant Early Learning and School Age payments will be paid them automatically from this week, without the need to apply for them separately.
Social Security Scotland will notify eligible claimants by text message when they are checking eligibility for the Best Start Grants and, if they are eligible, will write to advise them of the payment. The move to automatic awards will mean less paperwork for tens of thousands of families and ensure that people automatically receive the support to which they are entitled.
The move builds on work already completed to make applying for Social Security Scotland’s five family payments as simple as possible. It also includes the ability to apply for all children in a household on a single form.
Minister for Social Security, Ben Macpherson said: "Our extension to the Scottish Child Payment and its increase to £25 per child per week has been widely welcomed and will make a significant difference to families across the country. The increase represents a rise of 150% in just eight months.
“The increase and extension was described as a watershed moment in tackling child poverty by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and already people have applied in their tens of thousands.”
Social Security Scotland announced earlier this week that initial management information indicates that 89,000 applications were received for Scottish Child Payment between Monday November 14 and Tuesday November 15.
Mr Macpherson continued: “Tackling child poverty is a key mission for the Scottish Government and automating payments, where we have the information we need to do so, will mean parents and carers automatically getting the financial support they are eligible for paid directly to them.
“We are committed to making sure that receiving our five family payments is as straightforward as possible, using our limited social security powers and resources to help”.
CEO of One Parent Families Scotland, Satwat Rehman said: “We are delighted that Social Security Scotland have made changes so that parents who have applied for and receive Scottish Child Payment will no longer have to fill out separate forms to receive other family benefits.
“Many of the single parents we support are not aware of the financial support available to them and would therefore be at risk of losing out. We hope the change to automatic payments will lead to an increase in the number of families accessing benefits they are entitled to and will ease the financial and mental strain of the cost-of-living crisis.”
What is the Scottish Child Payment?
Scottish Child Payment helps towards the costs of supporting your family. It is a weekly payment of £25 that you can get for every child you look after who's under 16 years of age.
You will get £25 per week, per child. The money is paid every four weeks.
Scottish Child Payment is part of a wider package of five family payments including:
- Best Start Grant
- Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment
- Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment
- Best Start Grant School Age Payment
- Best Start Foods
Who can apply?
Only one person can get Scottish Child Payment for a child and it does not affect any other UK or Scottish Government benefits that you, or any person in your household, currently get.
You may be able to get Scottish Child Payment if all of the following apply:
- you live in Scotland
- you or your partner are getting certain benefits or payments
- you or your partner are the main person looking after a child who's under six years old
Benefits or payment you or your partner must get
You can apply whether you're in work or not, as long as you're getting one or more of the following benefits:
- Universal Credit
- Child Tax Credit
- Income Support
- Pension Credit
- Working Tax Credit
- Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
How to apply
For full details on claiming the benefit or to make a new claim, you can do it online here.
You can also apply over the phone by calling Social Security Scotland free on 0800 182 222.
Find out more about the Scottish Child Payment on mygov.scot here.
To keep up to date with the latest benefits news, join our Money Saving Scotland Facebook page here, or subscribe to our newsletter which goes out four times each week - sign up here.
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