Scottish Child Payment to rise to £25 a week and extend to children aged 6 to 15

The Scottish government published an impact assessment on 5 October 2022 covering the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendment and Transitional Provision) (Scotland) Regulations 2022. The regulations will allow the Scottish Child Payment to be paid for children aged between 6 and 15, and will raise its value to £25 a week for all eligible children¹. The payment is delivered by Social Security Scotland¹.

The assessment states the purpose of the changes:

The regulations also cover the other payments known collectively as the Five Family Payments: Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Foods and the three Best Start Grant payments (Pregnancy and Baby Payment, Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment)¹. The changes include:

The new exceptions to the first child rule for the higher Pregnancy and Baby Payment cover people granted refugee status, humanitarian protection, or leave under the Afghanistan or Ukraine resettlement schemes who have children from before they arrived in the UK; people who took on responsibility for a child who was not their own when that child was more than 12 months old; and people forced to leave home with a child because of domestic abuse¹. The regulations also remove the condition that the child is not looked after by the local authority in residential care, and update the meaning of surrogacy to mirror changes to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008¹.

On timing, the two accounts differ. The impact assessment is dated 5 October 2022 and does not give a start date for the £25 rate or the extension to older children¹. Turn2us lists 14 November 2022 as the date the Scottish Child Payment increases to £25 per week and is expanded to families in Scotland with children under 16². Turn2us also records that the payment doubled from £10 to £20 per week in April 2022².

Later figures from One Parent Families Scotland, in pages last updated 6 April 2026, put the Scottish Child Payment at £28.20 a week for each child in an eligible family up until their 16th birthday, and state the payments do not affect any other benefits received³. Those pages do not record the £25 rate or the 2022 rollout.

Why it matters for households

The change affects families in Scotland with children aged 6 to 15 who meet the eligibility rules for the Scottish Child Payment, alongside families already receiving it for younger children, whose weekly rate rises to £25¹. The payment is made for each eligible child, so a household with more than one eligible child receives it per child¹.

The regulations also change what happens in specific circumstances. Where a child to whom a claim relates dies, a payment equivalent to the Scottish Child Payments made in the 12 weeks before the death can be made, bringing the payment closer to the reserved benefits that act as qualifying benefits for the Scottish Child Payment, which allow a run on of up to 12 weeks in the same circumstances¹. Families whose circumstances change can have the payment reinstated within 12 weeks of the effective change rather than within 12 weeks of the original determination¹.

For Best Start Grant, eligible applicants who receive the Scottish Child Payment will have the Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment awarded automatically rather than needing to apply¹. Kinship carers who are not related to the child but are known to them and have a pre-existing relationship are included as the payment is rolled out to children aged 6 to 15¹.

What happens next

The impact assessment was published on 5 October 2022¹. Turn2us lists 14 November 2022 for the increase to £25 a week and the expansion to families with children under 16². The impact assessment does not state a commencement date¹.