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Children's Handbook Scotland | 2023/24

Chapter 6: Children who are ‘looked after and accommodated’

• 1. Benefits and tax credits for children who are 'looked after and accommodated'
• Child benefit
• Means-tested benefits
• Universal credit
• Income support and jobseeker’s allowance
• Income-related employment and support allowance
• Pension credit
• Housing benefit and council tax reduction
• Scottish child payment
• Non-means-tested benefits
• Disability living allowance, child disability payment, personal independence payment and adult disability payment
• Carer’s allowance
• Tax credits
• Other benefits
• Health benefits
• 2. When your child comes home
• Child benefit
• Means-tested benefits
• Universal credit
• Income support and jobseeker’s allowance
• Pension credit
• Housing benefit and council tax reduction
• Non-means-tested benefits
• Disability living allowance, child disability payment, personal independence payment and adult disability payment
• Carer’s allowance
• Tax credits

Your benefit and tax credit entitlement changes if your child is no longer living with you because s/he is ‘looked after and accommodated’ under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 or the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 – eg, s/he goes to stay in a residential unit or secure accommodation, or s/he has been placed with foster carers. You may have agreed to this or it may be because of a legal order such as a compulsory supervision order. In this chapter, we use the term ‘looked after and accommodated’ to describe this situation. Sometimes this may be referred to as ‘looked after away from home’.

The information in this chapter applies unless the residential accommodation has been provided solely:

•because of the child’s disability; or
•because the child’s health would be significantly impaired if the accommodation were not provided.

If this is the case, see Chapter 4 instead.