Office closure 

Our office will be closed for the September weekend on Monday 15 September 2025.

We will close at 4pm on Friday 12 September, and normal service will resume at 10am on Tuesday 16 September.

You can still submit a request for an independent review during this time. However, any reviews received after 3pm on Friday 12 September will be processed when we reopen.

Your feedback is important to us!

We are looking to gather feedback on our new Scottish Welfare Fund decision letter via this survey: https://forms.office.com/e/8AY7szX5Qp 

2018-19 Statistics

In 2018-19, 1,567 people contacted our Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) team.  This is a 34% increase on 2017-18, largely accounted for by signposting enquiries which rose from 424 in 2017-18 to 762 in 2018-19.

We handled 287 community care grant reviews and 513 crisis grant reviews, a total of 800.

The overall average uphold rate for crisis grant applications was 32%.

The overall average uphold rate for community care grant reviews was 51%.

Detailed information about the enquiries and reviews we handled over the course of the year is provided below:

The Ombudsman sends some authorities an annual letter about their review numbers.

Ombudsman's Local Authority letter October 2019 (PDF 248KB)

Statistics by council 2018-19

Updated: January 26, 2024