Attendance Allowance in Scotland: it is called Pension Age Disability Payment now

If you are in Scotland and searching for Attendance Allowance, here is the short answer: it has been replaced. The benefit for new claims over State Pension age in Scotland is Pension Age Disability Payment (PADP), run by Social Security Scotland - available across the whole country, with every existing Scottish Attendance Allowance award already moved over automatically.

What changed, and what did not

Applying for PADP

Three routes, all free: online through mygov.scot, by phone on 0800 182 2222 (Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm), or on paper - part 1 is taken over the phone and the part 2 form is posted to you, with 8 weeks to return it. The completed form goes back to Pension Age Disability Payment, PO Box 27199, Glasgow G4 7EP in the prepaid envelope.

The form asks about the same life

The PADP application walks through the same territory as the old AA1, in Scottish plain language: getting in and out of bed, washing and bathing, toilet needs, moving around indoors and falls, dressing, communicating, eating and drinking, staying safe during the day, your activities and interests (including ones you have given up and would take up again with the right support), medication and monitoring, and a night section that asks, need by need, how many nights a week. Its recurring sentence is the generous one: count help you might need but do not already have, and help you only need sometimes.

If the decision is wrong: re-determination, appeal, and Short-term Assistance

1. Re-determination: ask within 42 days of the decision letter (late requests possible up to a year with good reason). A different team takes a completely fresh look, and Social Security Scotland must respond within 56 days - if they do not, you gain a direct right of appeal.
2. Appeal: to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland within 31 days of the re-determination decision.
3. Short-term Assistance: if an existing award is reduced or stopped and you challenge it, you can ask for payments to continue at the old level while the challenge runs - and it is not repayable. There is no equivalent south of the border.

Common Scottish questions

• Already on Adult Disability Payment? You stay on it at pension age. You do not move to PADP and should not apply for it.
• Moving to Scotland with an Attendance Allowance award? Your AA stops 13 weeks after the move - apply for PADP promptly so nothing lapses.
• Nearing the end of life? The Scottish route is a BASRiS form from a doctor or nurse (an SR1 or DS1500 is also accepted): automatic higher rate, no qualifying period, decisions aimed at about 7 working days, paid weekly in advance.

The legal mirror, clause by clause

Pension Age Disability Payment did not loosely copy Attendance Allowance - its regulations mirror the AA statute almost word for word. The day condition requires "frequent attention throughout the day in connection with... bodily functions" or "continual supervision throughout the day in order to avoid substantial danger"; the night condition requires "prolonged or repeated attention" or another person "awake... for the purpose of watching over". If you have read our guides to the two rates or falls and supervision, every word carries over.

Scotland then added one clause AA never wrote down: the regulations define "attention" as including "prompting or motivation in relation to bodily functions or assistance with communication needs". Reminding, encouraging and prompting - the help that carries dementia and mental-health claims - is printed in the Scottish rules in black and white, so a Scottish application can claim that ground with complete confidence.

The transfer is finished - nobody in Scotland is "still on AA"

PADP opened across all of Scotland on 22 April 2025, and the transfer of every Scottish Attendance Allowance recipient is complete - 167,496 awards moved across by early 2026, without new applications and without anyone's money stopping. Two practical consequences. First, a new Attendance Allowance claim from a Scottish address is simply not possible - PADP is the only door. Second, if an elderly relative in Scotland still talks about "my Attendance Allowance", the award is now PADP in everything but habit: Social Security Scotland letters, Scottish challenge rights, Scottish phone numbers. The habits in this guide should switch with it.

Two guard rails before you apply

Already on Adult Disability Payment? Then pension age changes nothing: ADP continues, you do not move to PADP, and no application is needed. The mobility component of ADP is precisely why - moving would surrender it, as the AA-or-PIP borders guide explains for the GB equivalent.

Moving house across the border? An AA award follows you into Scotland for 13 weeks after the move, then stops, with PADP taking over - so the PADP application belongs in the moving-boxes checklist, not the someday pile. Moving out of Scotland runs the same handover in reverse.

Terminal illness: Scotland writes its own rule

The Scottish fast track runs on a BASRiS form (Benefit Assessment under Special Rules in Scotland), completed by a doctor or nurse - and Scotland deliberately removed the 12-month life-expectancy limit that the rest of the UK uses: the clinical judgment that a progressive condition may cause death is enough, with no timescale attached. An SR1 already written for the GB system is accepted too. These applications skip the qualifying period, receive the higher rate automatically, are decided in about 7 working days, and are paid weekly in advance.

The money around a PADP award

The rates match Attendance Allowance to the penny - £76.70 and £114.60 - and so does the passporting: PADP is a qualifying benefit for the Pension Credit severe disability addition (£86.05 a week for a single person living alone with nobody paid to care for them), and the family arithmetic around a carer applies with Scottish names - Carer Support Payment plays the role of Carer's Allowance, including in the trap that can cost a household the addition. Like AA, PADP has no means test, so savings and income are irrelevant, and the annual value calculator works unchanged for Scottish awards.

The contact sheet

The application itself - the three routes, the two-part form, and the help Social Security Scotland will give you along the way - has its own walkthrough in how to apply for PADP; challenges have theirs in re-determination and appeals.

No assessments - and this time it is a rule, not a tendency

Great Britain's system reserves the right to call you to an assessment where the paper picture is unclear. Scotland went further: Pension Age Disability Payment decisions are made from the application and supporting information, with no assessment appointments at all - Social Security Scotland's own medical practitioners support the case work instead of examining claimants. For an anxious 80-year-old, that is not a procedural footnote; it is the difference between a form and an ordeal. It also concentrates everything on the written answers - which is why the quality of part 2, and the help Scotland offers in writing it, matter so much.

One caution for the diary-keepers of the family: the Scottish qualifying rule looks 26 weeks backwards at when care needs began, so the date at which help genuinely started - not the date anyone got around to admitting it - is worth establishing honestly and early, exactly as our claim-date guide argues for the GB rule.

However Scottish the wrapper, the heart of a strong application is unchanged: honest frequencies, nights counted in minutes, prompting named as the help it is - and a claim made this month rather than next.

If one page of this site earns a bookmark for a Scottish family, make it this one - and make the next call 0800 182 2222.

Common questions