Funeral Support Payment: evaluation

Footnotes

1. Scottish Government (2017) Funeral Costs Plan

2. Scottish Government (2021) Funeral Support Payment: Who can apply and when

3. Social Security Scotland Case Managers contact applicants up to 3 times by phone for evidence, followed by a letter where needed. If the applicant has still not provided evidence, further attempts will be made to contact them within 28 days from when evidence was first submitted. If more time is required beyond 28 days, Case Managers need to seek approval from their line manager.

4. Scottish Government (2019) Devolved benefits: evaluating the policy impact

5. The Scottish Government had a moratorium on face-to-face research at this time due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

6. Redeterminations can be requested by applicants who have (a) had their application denied, but disagree with the decision, or (b) had their application authorised, but think the amount they are going to be paid is wrong.

7. Scottish Government (2018) Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification 2016.

8. Scottish Government (2020) Scottish Index Multiple Deprivation 2020.

9. Further detail on this secondary analysis is provided at Annex A.

10. For example, until March 2022, 92% of Scottish Child Payment applications were made online, and 6% on the telephone.

11. This is because Funeral Support Payment clients are contacted as a matter of course during the application process. This is not the case for all Social Security Scotland benefits.

12. More information on the figures in Table 4 is provided at Annex A.

13. It should be noted that the survey was administered to people who applied for benefits up to March 2021, before recent increases in application processing times. It is therefore possible that applicants from April 2021 onwards would respond differently to these questions.

14. Scottish Funeral Support Payment - Citizens Advice Scotland