§ Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied with the processing of child benefit applications by the office at Washington, County Durham; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. OrmeI am satisfied that the staff of the child benefit centre at Washington are coping successfully with a very heavy volume of work. With regard to the processing of applications, during the last year the staff have dealt with 825,000 claims. The average time currently taken between receipt of these claims and issue of the award notice to claimants is 7.3 working days for new claims and 4.1 working days for claims for additional children, where the claims are straightforward in all respects. Where some additional action or further inquiry of the claimant is necessary before benefit can be awarded, the corresponding average times are 22.7 and 9.6 working days respectively.
I accept that in a minority of individual cases there may be a delay or other mishandling giving cause for dissatisfaction, and there is of course continuing concern to reduce the number of such cases to a minimum.