SNP welfare quango turning a blind eye to benefits fraud

Figures obtained by the Scottish Tories under Freedom of Information showed Social Security Scotland (SSS) has found only 29 fraudulent claims in two and a half years.

This is despite nearly two million claims being paid by SSS over that period for Adult Disability Payment (ADP), Scottish Child Payment and Funeral Support Payment.

The Tories said the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates that around two per cent of benefit payments are made fraudulently.

They said that applying this figure in Scotland would suggest that around 40,000 fraudulent payments were made since the start of 2023/24 – totalling an estimated £121m.

SSS administers 15 benefits in Scotland, including some welfare payments devolved from Westminster and new benefits created by the SNP that are unavailable in the rest of the UK.

‘Light-touch reviews’

The SNP receives funding from the UK Government based on welfare spending per person in England and Wales, but any additional cost has to be found from their general budget for public services.

Audit Scotland has warned that the gap between the cost of the SNP’s more generous benefits system and the UK Government’s funding is on course to reach £2bn by the end of the decade.

Official forecasts last December found only two per cent of ADP payments had been stopped or decreased, following a review of whether the claimant continued to be eligible.

This compared with 16 per cent of payments being stopped following reviews of those claiming the Personal Independence Payment, the equivalent benefit in England and Wales.

Forecasters noted that the SNP had “introduced a policy of light-touch reviews which allows clients to ‘simply tick a box’ to confirm that their circumstances have not changed.”

Audit Scotland also warned in September that SSS has not had the same powers as the DWP “to require individuals to provide information for the purposes of reviewing cases to estimate levels of client error and fraud.”

Although legislation has now been passed to rectify this, auditors warned that there is “no timescale for when Social Security Scotland can consider incorrect payments due to client error or fraud.”

Benefit fraud cases

The Tory figures showed that SSS reported only two cases of benefit fraud in 2023/24, 12 in 2024/25 and 15 so far in 2025/26.

Alexander Stewart, the Scottish Tories’ Shadow Social Security Secretary, said: “These pitiful figures tell us that the SNP are effectively turning a blind eye to benefit fraud.
“Hard-working Scots are facing ever-rising taxes to fund the Nationalists’ ballooning and unsustainable welfare bill. It’s a further kick in the teeth to them to learn that some of it is going to claimants who are cheating the system

“The SNP’s quango should be pulling out all the stops to clamp down on benefit fraud. Its failure to do so is a complete dereliction of duty.”

Audit Scotland has also previously warned that the implementation costs for the Scottish Government’s social security programme have risen to £715m to 2025/26, more than double the initial estimate of £308m.

The Scottish Government referred a request for comment to SSS. SSS was approached for a response.