Social Security Experience Panels: fraud and error – report

Footnotes

1. Clients of Social Security Scotland could make an error in various ways. This could include a client completing an application incorrectly. It could also include a client failing to report or incorrectly reporting a change of circumstances. Errors could also occur during client case review processes.

2. Focus Groups were held in: Hamilton, Lanark, Irvine, Greenock, Glasgow (3), and Dundee.

3. Definition of 'client error': where someone has made a mistake on a form or didn't report something quickly enough and Social Security Scotland didn't have the right information at the right time.

4. Definition of 'fraud': where the decision maker finds that the evidence shows that someone deliberately misrepresented the facts, or didn't tell Social Security Scotland about something they knew they should report.

5. The focus group sessions asked a series of questions about how debt from fraud and error overpayments should be recovered. These findings are included in a wider section on recovering debt found in our 'Change of Circumstances' report. This is published on the Experience Panels publications webpage.