Take-up rates of Scottish benefits: November 2023

Methodology

There are three steps to estimating take-up rates, summarised below.

Step 1. Calculate the number of people that received the benefit.

Step 2. Estimate the number of people eligible to receive the benefit, including those who did and did not claim the benefit.

Step 3. Divide the number of benefit recipients by the estimated number of people eligible to receive the benefit.

Step 1. All benefits

• Published data or monitoring information requested from Social Security Scotland is used to calculate the number of recipients for each benefit.

Step 2. Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods

• Data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on the number of children by age group in families claiming Universal Credit or Tax Credits is used to calculate the proportion of children these Scottish benefits can be claimed for.
• This proportion is then multiplied by the total number of births or children in the specific age range for each of these Scottish benefits. This produces our estimate of the number of children these benefits can be claimed for.
• Adjustments are made for the Best Start Foods income thresholds and people flowing into eligibility over the application period for Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment.

Step 2. Scottish Child Payment (local authority estimates)

• Data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on the number of children by age group, and local authority, in families claiming Universal Credit or Tax Credits is used to estimate the number of children in each local authority these Scottish benefits can be claimed for.

Step 2. Young Carer Grant

• Data from the Scottish Surveys Core Questions from 2021-22 is used to estimate the proportion of 16 to 18 year olds providing at least 16 hours of unpaid care per week.
• This is multiplied by the number of people aged 16 to 18, to estimate the number of young people eligible to claim the benefit.
• Young carers who claim Carer’s Allowance or provide care to someone not in receipt of a qualifying disability benefit are subtracted from the estimate of the eligible population, as they are not eligible for the benefit.

Step 2. Job Start Payment

• DWP provided aggregated estimates of the number of Universal Credit claimants living in Scotland aged 16 to 24, who had no earned income (according to HMRC earnings data) for a period of at least six months prior to receiving some income from employment. We believe this provides the best available estimate for the number of people eligible for the Job Start Payment.
• An adjustment is made to account for the requirement to work 12 or more hours per week.

Step 2. Funeral Support Payment

• The microsimulation model UKMOD is used to estimate the proportion of the population in receipt of a qualifying reserved benefit for Funeral Support Payment.
• This proportion is then multiplied by the total number of deaths to estimate the number of people eligible to claim Funeral Support Payment.

Step 3. All benefits

• Divide the number of benefit recipients by the estimate of the eligible population to calculate the take-up rate.