SCOTLAND’S new benefits agency has spent the equivalent of more than £12,000 a month on staff travel expenses since it was set up last year, it has emerged.

Figures show Social Security Scotland has spent at least £72,650 on planes, trains, taxis and cars since September – with more than £5,000 going towards air travel.

Scottish Tory shadow social security secretary Michelle Ballantyne said it was an “extraordinarily large amount to spend on travel in such a short period of time”.

She said: “With the SNP admitting that they won’t even have the capability to handle social security payments until 2024, you have to question why this amount is so high.

“It’s already embarrassing enough for the SNP that they have had to ask the DWP to continue delivering these powers on their behalf for another five years."

Social Security Scotland, the first major new public service created under devolution, began paying benefits in mid-September.

However, the Scottish Government announced earlier this year that a clutch of benefits would not be administered until 2024.

A Freedom of Information request by the Tories shows staff at the £300m agency spent £45,508 on rail travel between September and the end of February this year.

Meanwhile, £13,833 was spent on hiring or leasing vehicles, £5,141 on air travel and £973 on taxis.

“Miscellaneous” travel cost £2,194, and £5,001 was spent on vehicle mileage.

Bus, personal mileage and car parking costs were not included.

Under the 2016 Scotland Act that followed the independence referendum, Holyrood was given power over 11 benefits worth £3bn, roughly 15 per cent of social security spending north of the border.

A Social Security Scotland spokeswoman said: “We are building a new national public service and face-to-face communication with local authorities, stakeholders and most importantly the public is necessary.

“We have been delivering benefits since September 2018 and in those seven months, in excess of 77,000 people have benefited from £197 million in payments through Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Allowance Supplement and Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payments.

“We have staff travelling the length and breadth of the country to promote our benefits and establish our local service.

“We have established a head office in Dundee and a major site in Glasgow and now have over 400 staff.

"We are also working closely with the Scottish Government who are building the social security system we will administer and the Department for Work and Pensions.”

Travel costs are projected to account for less than 1% of the agency's overall operating expenditure in 2018-19.