§ Mr. Shersbyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the average time taken by his Department at Newcastle to process applications for national insurance refunds; and what is the approximate number of such applications now pending.
§ Mr. OrmeApplications for refunds dealt with at the Newcastle central office fall in to two categories, refunds of excess Class 1 and Class 2 contributions, dealt with entirely at Newcastle, and refunds of erroneous contributions where reference has to be made to local offices. The average time taken to process these applications is two-three weeks and eight 983W weeks, respectively, and the number of applications pending is 26,000 and 12,000, respectively.