§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of attendance allowance awards were allocated to each disability group as defined by the Department(a) since the new pack was introduced in October 2003 and (b) under the previous system. [146740]
§ Mr. PondInformation on the proportion of attendance allowance awards allocated to each disability group as defined by the Department is obtained from quarterly extracts from the attendance allowance computer system. The last quarterly extract covered the quarter ending 31 August 2003.
458W
New attendance allowance awards by medical condition during the quarter ending 31 August 2003 Thousand All 84.8 Other unspecified mainly terminally ill 10.5 Arthritis 18.1 Spondylosis 0.6 Back pain—not specified 0.6 Disease of the muscles, bones or joints 3.9 Trauma to limbs 0.6 Blindness 2.5 Deafness 10.1 Heart disease 7.5 Chest disease 3.9 Asthma 0.8 Cerebrovascular disease 5.1 Peripheral vascular disease 0.6 Frailty 14.3 Epilepsy 10.2 Neurological diseases 0.9 Multiple sclerosis 10.1 Parkinsons disease 1.8 Motor Neuron disease 10.1 Chronic fatigue syndromes — Diabetes mellitus 1.6 Traumatic paraplegia/tetraplegia — Major trauma other than traumatic paraplegia tetraplegia
10.1 Mental subnormality — Psychosis 10.4 Psychoneurosis 0.7 Dementia 7.3 Behavioural disorder — Alcohol abuse 10.1 Renal disorders 10.2 Inflammatory bowel disease 10.1 Bowel and stomach disease 10.3 Blood disorders 10.3 Multi system disorders — Skin disease — Malignant disease 1.7 Haemodialysis — 1Figures are less than 500 and subject to a high degree of sampling variation.
Notes:
Figures are in thousands and rounded to the nearest hundred.
'—'denotes nil or negligible.
From November 2002, the methodology for producing these figures was changed to allow statistics to be published much sooner. This has resulted in a small increase in the reported caseload. This is because some cases which have actually terminated but have not yet been updated on the computer system are now included.
Figures represent decisions made on new attendance allowance claims only during this period.
Source:
IAD Information Centre. 5 per cent. sample.
The data for the quarter ending 30 November 2003 will not be available until late February 2004. The next publication relating to November 2003 will be released on 17 March 2003. The delay between data collection and publication is because the information centre must quality assure the data, produce standard tables and make a dataset available for further ad hoc analysis.
§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of attendance allowance claims, processed since the new claim pack was introduced in October 2003, have been subject to appeal. [146742]
§ Mr. PondThe following information shows the number of decisions made on new attendance allowance claims in the months of October and November 2003 and the number of attendance allowance appeals registered in the same months. Decisions appealed in October and November will contain a mix of claims made on the old and new forms. No separate data is available.
October 2003 November 2003 Decisions made 35,111 30,957 Appeals registered 1,213 1,120 Percentage 3.45 3.61
§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of attendance allowance claimants have been contacted by telephone to discuss their claim since the new claim pack was introduced in October 2003. [146743]
§ Mr. PondStatistics on the number of telephone calls made to attendance allowance customers to discuss their claim are not routinely collected.