§ Mr. Frank Fieldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will break down for each month since the statutory sick pay scheme came into operation the numbers of (a) small employers and (b) large employers found to be (i) underpaying and (ii) overpaying benefit; and if he will give the number of workers involved for each group and the range of the underpayments.
§ Dr. BoysonInformation is not available in the exact form requested. Officials from the Department's local
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Employers with less than six employees Employees with six or more employees In the four weeks ending: Individual cases of payment checked of which Individual cases of payment checked of which Underpayments Overpayments Underpayments Overpayments 10 May 1983 558 30 31 1,973 64 99 7 June 1983 2,004 135 146 9,301 456 780 5 July 1983 3,880 298 366 22,854 1,862 2,274 2 August 1983 4,207 311 425 25,294 1,547 1,932 30 August 1983 4,012 331 423 24,389 1,531 1,966 27 September 1983 4,514 388 571 23,315 1,488 1,981
§ Dr. BoysonThe information requested is not available. The complements of local offices include 1,600 posts nationally, allocated for the monitoring of the statutory sick pay scheme.
§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give a breakdown of the total cost of unemployment benefits in each year from 1979–80 to 1982–83 and of the latest estimate for 1983–84 between those claiming unemployment benefit and those claiming supplementary benefit; and if he will also give the number of claimants, male and female by category.
§ Dr. BoysonThe information on benefits paid in respect of unemployment is as follow:
offices are currently carrying out a programme of visits to all known employers, during which they check a sample of statutory sick pay cases and give advice as necessary about statutory sick pay. Centrally held records of these visits relate to the individual cases checked. The number of employers found to have made mistakes could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The financial value of mistakes found is not in general recorded by the visiting officer, but the types of error identified indicate that, on the whole, their value is not large. In many cases a wrong payment of statutory sick pay will not affect the employee's pay packet, because the statutory sick pay is topped up to a higher amount with occupational sick pay. The information available is given in the following table.
I should take this opportunity to correct wrong figures, resulting from an arithmetical error, which I gave in my reply to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) on 19 December 1983—[Vol. 51, c. 57–58]—and during the debate of the Third Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments on 20 December 1983 at c. 6. I gave the total current figure for cases checked in businesses employing fewer than six people as about 26,000 of which 21 per cent, were in error. The correct figures are about 29,000 and 19 per cent, as shown in the following table.
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Employers with less than six employees Employees with six or more employees In the four weeks ending: Individual cases of payment checked of which Individual cases of payment checked of which Underpayments Overpayments Underpayments Overpayments 25 October 1983 4,873 444 577 23,660 1,638 2,012 22 November 1983 4,619 419 642 22,050 1,350 1,982 Total 28,667 2,356 3,181 152,836 9,936 13,026