Social Security Agency (Hansard, 10 July 1992)

§ 5. Mr. Hanley

The targets are included in the agency's 1992–93 business plan which was published today and a copy of which has been placed in the Library. The targets present a demanding challenge for the agency and fully support the next steps principles. They are as follows:

Benefit clearance times¹

Social fund crisis loans—applications cleared on the day the need arises.
Social fund community care grants—applications cleared on average in seven days.
Income support new claims—claims cleared on average in four days.
Sickness and invalidity benefit claims—65 per cent. of claims cleared in 12 days and 95 per cent. in 30 days.²
Child benefit—65 per cent. of claims in 10 days and 95 per cent. in 30 days.²
Family credit—60 per cent. of claims in 13 days and 95 per cent. in 45 days.²
Disability living allowance—60 per cent of claims in 30 days and 95 per cent in 55 days.²
Disability working allowance (claims from people starting work)—95 per cent. of claims in five days.²
Retirement pension—65 per cent. of claims in 20 days and 95 per cent. of claims in 60 days.²
Unemployment benefit—applications cleared on average in 8 days.³

Benefit accuracy

Income support—pay the correct amount in 99 per cent. of cases.
Incapacity benefits⁴—to pay the correct amount in 98 per cent. of cases.
Family credit—to pay the correct amount in 96 per cent. of cases.
Disability living allowance—to pay the correct amount in 96 per cent. of cases.
Disability working allowance—to pay the correct amount in 95 per cent. of cases.
Pensions—to pay the correct amount in 99 per cent. of cases.

Customer satisfaction

90 per cent. of customers to regard the agency's service as satisfactory or better.

Resource management

To manage the agency's resources to deliver its Business Plan within a total budget of £121 million of which £111.4 million relates to departmental running costs (DRC).
Achieve new efficiency savings worth at least 2.5 per cent. of DRC.
The budget of £121 million is net of these savings.
Keep to a gross allocation for social fund loans and grants of £25 million.

Financial recovery

Recovery of social fund loans—£13.62 million.
Recovery of income support overpayments—£l million. Benefit savings from detection and prevention of fraud—£10.4 million.
Increase number of national insurance contribution surveys of employers by 15 per cent. to 5,000.

Notes:

¹ Clearance times normally cover the period from date of receipt of the claim in the agency to the formal decision by the adjudication officer or equivalent. Notification of the result is normally issued by the following day. All days refer to working days.

² These targets are expressed in the format x per cent. in y days based on the time taken to clear individual cases, thus giving a better indication of the spread of service than a simple average.

³ The target for clearing unemployment benefit claims has been set at eight days. This is slightly higher than last year's target of seven days. The main reason for this is that over the next 18 months offices will be converting to new computer systems. Sound experience on introducing major new systems in both the public and private sectors is that during conversion there is a period of temporary disruption while records are being transferred from clerical systems and staff are being trained and becoming proficient in the new ways of working. Whilst eight days remains a very challenging target which will require considerable commitment to achieve, performance will be continually monitored in a determined effort to improve upon this.

⁴ Incapacity benefits is an overall term used to cover sickness benefit, invalidity benefit, severe disablement benefit and maternity allowance.