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Full-time non-advanced education

Only those aged 16–19 in full-time, non-advanced education are excluded from CSP.

’Non-advanced education’ is education below the level of Higher National Certificate and includes school-level courses such as Scottish national qualifications up to and including advanced higher level, Scottish Wider Access Programmes and National Certificates.1

You are in ‘full-time education’ if you are undertaking a course for which the average time spent studying is more than 21 hours a week. These 21 hours include not just classes, practical work, lectures and seminars, but also ‘supervised study’. Meal breaks and unsupervised study are ignored. For carer’s allowance (CA), you are regarded as studying under supervision if you are doing course work, whether at home or at college, alone or in the presence of a supervisor.2 This does not have to be followed for carer support payment (CSP) in Scotland, but it is likely to be persuasive.

16–19 year-olds in full-time, non-advanced education are not excluded from CSP if they are someone who would qualify for universal credit (UC) while receiving education (except if the reason they would qualify is that they are waiting to return to their course after taking time out because of illness or caring responsibilities – see here).

Basic rules

As well as being a student who is eligible to claim, to qualify for CSP you must satisfy all of the following conditions.1

• You are aged 16 or over.
• You spend at least 35 hours a week caring for someone.
• The person for whom you care gets a qualifying disability benefit: the middle or highest care component of child disability payment/disability living allowance/Scottish adult disability living allowance, the daily living component of adult disability payment/personal independence payment, attendance allowance, pension age disability payment, constant attendance allowance (in certain cases) or armed forces independence payment.
• You do not already get CA, UC carer element because you care for someone else, or a young carer grant (but you can get CSP if you previously had a young carer grant).
• You are not working and earning more than £196 a week.
• You satisfy certain rules on residence and presence in the UK and are not a ‘person subject to immigration control’. See CPAG’s Welfare Benefits Handbook for details.

The disabled person’s benefit

Your entitlement to CSP depends on the person for whom you care continuing to get their disability benefit. If their benefit stops, your benefit should also stop. To avoid being overpaid, make sure you tell Social Security Scotland if the disabled person’s qualifying disability benefit stops being paid.

Note: although CSP may mean more money for you, it may result in the person for whom you care losing some income-related employment and support allowance (ESA), pension credit or housing benefit (HB). If they live alone, they may be getting a severe disability premium included in the assessment of these benefits. They cannot continue to get this premium if you get CSP for them. See CPAG’s Welfare Benefits Handbook for details and, if in doubt, get advice before claiming.

Overlapping benefits

Although CSP is not means tested, you cannot receive it at the same time as certain other overlapping benefits, including maternity allowance, widowed parent’s allowance, retirement pension, new-style jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) or contributory ESA. If you are eligible for CSP and an overlapping benefit, CSP is reduced by the amount of the other benefit (and may be reduced to nil). If you cannot be paid CSP because of these rules, you still have an underlying entitlement to it. See CPAG’s Welfare Benefits Handbook for more information.

Getting a carer premium or element

If you are a student getting CSP and claiming universal credit (UC), you are eligible for a carer element in your UC, and you are not expected to look for work. If you are getting income-related ESA or HB, a carer premium is included in these benefits, even if your CSP is not being paid because you are getting another benefit that overlaps with it.

Scottish carer supplement

If you get CSP on a qualifying date, you are entitled to a top-up payment from SSS called a ‘carer’s allowance supplement’. Each payment of £293.50 covers a six-month period. The qualifying dates for 2025 are 14 April (paid in June 2025) and 13 October (paid in December 2025). You must actually be receiving CSP on the qualifying date – an underlying entitlement is not enough. The CA supplement is disregarded for all means-tested benefits. There is no need to make a claim for CA supplement; it should be paid automatically.

The CA supplement will change to a ‘Scottish carer supplement’ from March 2026, to be paid alongside CSP.1

Carer additional person payment

A new carer additional person payment of £10 a week per additional person cared-for is to be introduced from March 2026.1 There will be no limit on the number of cared-for people that someone can get an additional payment for, but you must care for them for at least 20 hours a week. These 20 hours may run at the same time as the 35 hours of care needed to get CSP – for example a carer may be caring for more than one person in the same property, and therefore some of the caring for each person may take place at the same time.

You can only get the carer additional person payment if you already get CSP. You can’t get it if you only have underlying entitlement to CSP, for example because you get a state pension or other overlapping benefit.

Young carer grant

The young carer grant is a one-off grant of £390.25 (2025 rate), payable once a year. Eligible young carers are those aged 16–18 (regardless of their circumstances) who are not getting CSP. To qualify, you must be providing care for at least 16 hours a week in total, although this can be a combination of care for up to three people. The cared-for people must be in receipt of one of the benefits that allows entitlement to CSP (see here). You must also have provided care in at least 10 of the last 13 weeks. Apply to SSS by phone, in writing or online – see mygov.scot/young-carer-grant/how-to-apply.

The young carer grant will be extended to 19-year-olds from sometime in November 2025.1

For up-to-date information on the young carer grant, see cpag.org.uk/young-carer-grant.

Who counts as a child

Anyone aged under 16 counts as a ‘child’ for child benefit purposes, whether or not they go to school. Provided you meet the other qualifying conditions, child benefit can be paid for them.1 Child benefit can also be paid for a child after they reach 16 until at least 31 August after their 16th birthday, and then for as long as they continue to count as a qualifying young person.

Who counts as a qualifying young person

A ‘qualifying young person’ is someone who:1

• is aged 16 and has left full-time, non-advanced education (see below) or training. This only applies up to 31 August after their 16th birthday (but see below); or
• is aged 16 or 17, has left education or training and satisfies the extension period rule (see here); or
• is aged 16 or over but under 20 and is on a course of full-time, non-advanced education not provided as a result of their employment or approved training not provided under a contract of employment. ‘Approved training’ is defined as arrangements known as ‘No One Left Behind’.2 The young person must have started the course or training before reaching 19 or have been accepted or enrolled to undertake it before that age; or
• is aged 16 or over but under 20 and has finished a course of full-time, non-advanced education not provided as a result of their employment or approved training not provided under a contract of employment; however, they have been accepted or enrolled on another such course. Note: if the course they have finished is an approved training course, this only applies if the following course is also approved training. Although someone must have started, or been accepted or enrolled on, the training or education when they were under 19 to be a qualifying young person once the course begins, the rules do not specify this for the gap between courses.3 If the young person was accepted or enrolled after reaching age 19, you can argue that they are a qualifying young person from the end of the course until the next course begins; or
• is aged 16 or over but under 20 and has left full-time, non-advanced education or approved training but has not passed their terminal date (see here).

Full-time, non-advanced education

’Full time’ is more than 12 hours a week of classes and supervised study during term time (if you do less because of illness or disability, you can qualify).

’Non-advanced education’ is anything below degree, Higher National Certificate or Higher National Diploma level and includes school-level courses, Scottish Vocational Qualification levels 1–3, National Certificates, National Progression Awards and Scottish Wider Access Programme courses.

If your child counts as a qualifying young person on more than one of the above grounds, they count as a qualifying young person until the last day that applies.4

If you stop being entitled to child benefit for your child because they no longer count as a qualifying young person, but they later satisfy one of the above conditions again and so count as a qualifying young person once more, child benefit can again become payable for them. Note: in some cases, you can continue to claim during such an interruption - eg, if the young person is ill or the gap is less than six months. In both cases, the interruption must be accepted as being reasonable.5

Note: in the rest of this chapter, the term ‘child’ is used to mean both children under 16 and qualifying young people aged 16 or over.

The extension period

If your child is 16 or 17, they continue to count as a qualifying young person, and so child benefit can continue to be paid for them during an ‘extension period’ if:1

• they have left education or training; and
• they are registered as available for work, education or training with Skills Development Scotland; and
• they are not in remunerative work – ie, work of 24 hours a week or more for payment or in expectation of payment; and
• you were entitled to child benefit for them immediately before the extension period started; and
• you apply in writing or by phone within three months of the date your child’s education or training finished.

In this context, ‘education’ and ‘training’ are not defined and so may mean any kind of education or training.

The extension period starts from the Monday after your child’s course of education or training ends and lasts for 20 weeks from that date. If your child reaches 18 during the extension period, unless they count as a qualifying young person on another ground (see here), your child benefit for them ends from the first child benefit payday on or after which they reach 18.2

The terminal date

If your child leaves full-time, non-advanced education (see here) or approved training before reaching 20, they continue to count as a qualifying young person until:1

• the terminal date; or
• their 20th birthday, if this falls before the terminal date.

The general rule means that unless they continue to count as a qualifying young person on another ground or are returning to sit an exam (see below), you stop receiving child benefit for them on that date.

If someone is doing a Higher Certificate or Advanced Higher Certificate and leaves full-time, non-advanced education earlier than they would have done if they were doing a comparable course in England and Wales, the terminal date is the one that would have applied had they had been doing the comparable course.2

A child who returns to sit an external examination in connection with their course of relevant education is treated as still being in relevant education until the date of the last exam.3