§ Mr. FisherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he will provide each member of staff assessing entitlement to housing benefit transitional payments with a copy of the procedure to be used to calculate entitlement.
§ Mr. ScottAll members of staff at the transitional payments unit have received full training on the procedures for calculating eligibility to transitional payments. These detailed procedures are contained within a manual of instructions to which all members of staff have full access.
§ Mr. FisherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what procedure is used to calculate entitlement to housing benefit transitional payments.
§ Mr. ScottLeaflet RR4 "Housing Benefit—New Rules" contains an explanation of the method for calculating housing benefit transitional payments. A copy of the leaflet is in the Library. More detailed instructions have been produced for the staff at the transitional payments unit.
§ Mr. FisherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many claims have been made for housing benefit transitional protection; and how many of these were(a) successful and (b) unsuccessful.
§ Mr. ScottOf the 381,574 applications for housing benefit transitional payments received by the transitional payments unit at 22 November, 281,416 had been assessed. 141,140 applications were successful and 140,276 cases were not. In 73,524 cases the transitional payments unit are awaiting the return of inquiry forms from local authorities.
§ Mr. FisherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) whether he plans to introduce an appeals procedure against decisions taken under the housing benefits transitional arrangements;
(2) whether there is any current facility for appealing against decisions under the housing benefit transitional arrangements.
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§ Mr. ScottTransitional payments are made by the Department of Social Security on behalf of the Secretary of State on an extra-statutory basis and therefore carry no formal right of appeal. However we have adopted a review procedure whereby applicants who are not satisfied with the notice of award/refusal which they have received can write to the unit and request that the decision on their application be looked at again. When such a request is received the case is looked at again by a different officer of a more senior grade to check that the case has been dealt with correctly.
§ Mr. FisherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the current average waiting time for decisions under the housing benefit transitional arrangements.
§ Mr. ScottThe clearance times for applications for transitional payments will vary considerably from case to case and depend on how long the local authorities take to return the inquiry forms and whether further inquiries have to be made from the unit. But for straightforward cases, it takes at present two days from receiving an application in the unit to sending the inquiry form to the local authority, 31 days for the local authority to return the inquiry form to the unit, and a further five days from receiving that inquiry form at the unit to deciding whether a payment can be made. The transitional payments unit has contacted a number of local authorities to encourage them to return the inquiry forms more promptly.