This the latest issue of our quarterly Adult Disability Payment Insights publication.

Demand for advice about challenging ADP decision making is consistently high. Here are three key points you need to know:

• Over 77,000 pieces of ADP advice about the daily living component were provided to more than 27,000 people in 2025-26. Redeterminations represented the third highest demand area of ADP advice.
• While most people experienced compassion and kindness during their ADP journey, narrow and inconsistently applied criteria can mean that people’s mobility needs are not fully recognised, compromising decision-making. 
• A national escalation route for advisers would ensure urgent issues and safeguarding concerns are acted on quickly.

• A four nations approach to social security is crucial; changes to reserved social security will have a significant impact in Scotland, and Scotland’s experience of devolving Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and developing Adult Disability Payment (ADP) provides valuable learning for the Timms Review.
• ADP in Scotland was co-produced with disabled people, resulting in a design rooted in dignity, fairness and respect, supported by in-house medical expertise, and a broader approach to gathering supporting information. This approach is transformative, with people describing interactions with Social Security Scotland as humanising and promoting self-worth.
• An early independent review of ADP highlights a strong commitment to continuous learning, offering valuable insights for the Timms Review by showing how pro-active evaluation, grounded in lived experience, can shape fairer, more effective reform.
• Scotland’s ADP Review was thorough, transparent and grounded in lived experience, identifying the need for rigorous decision-making and a simpler application process. It concluded that modernised criteria that are holistic, wellbeing, and quality of life-based would empower both individuals and decision makers to correctly identify aspirations and break down barriers. 
• Well-resourced, trusted advice services are essential to making any reform of PIP effective in practice, they play a pivotal role in supporting people to navigate and realise the benefit of changes to the social security landscape, while helping social security to achieve more by bridging fragmented service provision.
   

This the latest issue of our quarterly ADP Insights publication.

Here are three key points you need to know:   

• From October to December 2025, the network provided almost 18,000 pieces of advice about the Daily Living Component of ADP to almost 8,000 people - these figures are broadly unchanged from previous quarters, highlighting consistently high advice demand.  
• Demand for advice about Short-term Assistance was three times higher than at the same time last year, indicating that people who have been awarded ADP previously are beginning to form a larger proportion of those the CAS network is supporting to challenge decisions.
• An award was granted at initial application in over half of the cases where our advice supported receipt of the Daily Living Component, showing that we enable the right decisions to be made the first time. 

As Scotland’s largest independent advice network, we welcome this opportunity to contribute our views and considerations concerning how the Department of Work and Pensions' new powers to identify, prevent, and reduce fraud and error should be applied in practice.  
Reflecting our role in representing the interests of those who seek advice from the network in Scotland, and our corresponding evidence base, our response is limited to the sections of the draft Code of Practice concerning eligibility verification notices (EVNs). Our response is drawn from evidence concerning the perspective of the advice sector and the people that it supports.

Key points  

•    The Code must be further developed. In it is not in its current form robust enough to minimise the risk of harm, stigma and deterrence, limiting the right to social security. 
•    Safeguarding focused conversations with potential and existing claimants about the EVN process and how it might impact them must be co-designed and referenced. 
•    Clear, unambiguous timeframes on when information must be provided to claimants highlighting that a response to an EVN has triggered further process. 
•    The Code must specify how it is envisaged that EVNs could work alongside measures to improve targeted support for people in vulnerable circumstances including:  
•    Accessible communication,  incorporating multi-channel prompts and check-ins,  self-help tools (including hypothetical examples of relevant and not relevant changes),  and flexible reporting options, is mandatory if the new powers are to be effective and not perpetuate harm. 
 

A briefing on what we need to see on tackling poverty in Party manifestos for the upcoming Scottish election. You can also watch our foreCASt: election insights episode on maximising incomes to find out more about our evidence and manifesto asks.

CAS has responded to an enquiry by Westminster's Work and Pensions Committee exploring how best to support young people not in education, training or employment (NEET). Evidence from our network shows that young people in these circumstances face complex barriers to participation.   
Our key finding include:

•    Holistic, seamless support that effectively addresses the complexity of the lives of young people in vulnerable circumstances is mandatory if the underlying drivers of young people becoming Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) are to be tackled 
•    The challenges being faced by young people vary both by individual and locality - this means that a whole-person, flexible approach built on partnership working across local and national services is needed - this includes access to banking, digital services, local transport and childcare infrastructure in a way that recognises the impact of gender and disability.  
•    The ongoing Review of Universal Credit (UC) must deliver changes to social security to better support young people to positive destinations – this means:
1.    ensuring standard UC allowance is equalised for all working-age adults  
2.    facilitating access to a new Health Element of Universal Credit for people under the age of twenty-two at the earliest opportunity  
•    The advice sector, characterised by high levels of trust and deep local knowledge, plays a vital role in helping young people achieve positive outcomes – the advice sector must be supported with long-term and sustainable funding 
 

Routes out of Crisis delivered targeted advice and support to people in the most complex circumstances through new approaches including named adviser and access to micro grants. This had transformative impact into multiple areas of people's lives.

Opportunities exist to reimagine how we best support people in the most complex circumstances and lift families and households out of poverty. This has the potential to deliver large scale impact for people in crisis, advice services and the wider economy, by reducing pressure on public services.

You can read our summary of year one of the project below.

With thanks to The Lines Between for supporting the evaluation of this project and the Scottish Government and Trussell for support in funding this work.

Citizens Advice Scotland has today released the second edition of Insights into Adult Disability Payment: Evidence from Citizens Advice Scotland a short and important publication that both identifies the challenges facing disabled people across Scotland and explores solutions.    

Key findings from the briefing include:  

Our advice supports the right decisions to be made the first time: an ADP award was granted at initial application in more than half the cases (53%) regarding the Daily Living Component.  

Demand for advice about raising an appeal continued to grow: 21% higher as a proportion of all ADP advice compared to this time last year

Our network has been supporting an increasing number of people who have responded to adverts for commercial firms charging for social security support. Any deductions from social security payments risk financial hardship and pushing people into poverty.  

The first edition of Insights into Adult Disability Payment: Evidence from Citizens Advice Scotland a new short and important publication that both identifies the challenges facing disabled people across Scotland and explores solutions.