Social Security Scotland recently announced that work is underway to speed up processing times for Adult and Child Disability Payment applications, two new devolved benefits which have now replaced new claims for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance for Children (DLA for Child) for people living in Scotland.
Scotland’s devolved welfare agency said that the “majority of people will receive a decision within four months” but added that processing times can vary from a “few weeks to six months” in a small number of “very complex cases”. The current end-to-end processing time for PIP, delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is also an average of 16 weeks.
Social Security Scotland said that some decisions are taking longer because new claimants have been unable to provide the supporting information needed to make a decision and asked Social Security Scotland to gather it for them. It said that collecting this information is a key difference between the Scottish system and the DWP.
