§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to the reply of 26 January,Official Report, columns 200–214, what is the nature of the evidence he has relating to activity on the supplementary benefit caseload of benefit offices.
§ Mr. PortilloThe staffing levels of local social security offices are established by their proportionate share of the forecast national workloads (for example, the number of unemployed supplementary benefit claimants) and the average time spent on each of these workloads. The information on average times is obtained from periodic activity sampling exercises. The latest such exercise was held from August 1986 to July 1987.