§ Mr. Sean Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will provide a breakdown for people awaiting single payments at the Huyton office of his Department, between the numbers claiming for items of furniture, diet allowance and extra heating allowance, respectively.
§ Mr. MajorInformation is not available in the precise form requested. A recent count has shown that 970 single payment claims for furniture are outstanding at the Huyton local office, but, as one person can make several claims at any one time, information cannot be derived from this to show how many people are awaiting such single payments.
§ Mr. Sean Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what is the average period of delay experienced by claimants to the Huyton office of his Department for the hearing of tribunal appeal cases;
(2) how many people are presently awaiting the hearing of tribunal appeal cases at the Huyton office of his Department; and how many have experienced delays of three, four, five and six months, respectively.
§ Mr. MajorThere are currently 123 social security benefit appeals outstanding at the Department's Huyton local office. The latest available statistics, which are for the quarter ended 31 December 1984, show that the average length of time from lodgement of a social security 321W benefit appeal to tribunal hearing, for the social security north-western region which covers the Huyton area, was 15.8 weeks. A breakdown of this figure is given in the table.
Equivalent figures are not available for localities smaller than a region.
Clearance rate (in weeks) from Lodgement to Hearing Weeks Great Britain North-Western 1 9 2 2 19 1 3 167 23 4 722 82 5 1507 142 6 2150 238 7 2169 219 8 2182 280 9 1916 229 10 1733 261 11 1453 261 12 1319 255 13 1168 220 Over 13 9626 2158 Average 13.9 15.8