HC Deb 21 January 2004 vol 416 cc1337-9W
Mr. George Osborne

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people claimed disability living allowance for the financial years(a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03, broken down by disability living allowance band. [147333]

Maria Eagle

People claim for disability living allowance as a whole rather than for any particular part of it. Figures for the total number of claims and the number of awards, broken down by particular components, are shown in the following table.

Number of new disability living allowance claims and awards

each year
Thousand
2002–03 2001–02
Number of claims1 407.8 433.3
All awards2 252.8 264.8
Higher Rate Care and Higher Mobility 36.7 38.0
Higher Rate Care Lower Rate Mobility 14.4 15.8
Higher Rate Care only 11.9 12.4
Middle Rate Care and Higher Rate Mobility 24.7 26.8
Middle Rate Care and Lower Rate Mobility 26.8 28.9
Middle Rate Care only 20.6 20.4
Lower Rate Care and Higher Rate Mobility 29.9 29.1
Lower Rate Care and Lower Rate Mobility 14.6 15.0
Lower Rate Care only 34.5 37.6
Higher Rate Mobility 29.1 31.0
Lower Rate Mobility 9.6 9.8

Notes:

The figures for the number of claims and the number of awards for each year are drawn from different sources and are not comparable.

Figures are in thousands and rounded to the nearest hundred.

A small number of people have more than one award in the year. These people a re counted more than once as the table shows awards.

Source:

  1. 100 per cent. MIS data. Figures are for financial years
  2. IAD Information Centre, 5 per cent. sample. The figures are for the number of awards at May and are closest to the financial years.

John Robertson

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps his Department is taking to reduce the complexity of the application process for disability living allowance. [148493]

Maria Eagle

The Disability and Carers Service acknowledges that the claiming process for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) needs to be simplified and has been running a number of initiatives designed to improve the service to customers.

A shorter DLA postal claim form based around the revised Attendance Allowance (AA) claim form introduced nationally on 6 October 2003 is being tested. The new DLA postal form has 23 pages and is considerably shorter than the existing claim form. The results from the first three full months of testing are currently being collated and a revised claim form is expected to be produced later this year.

Internet based claim forms for DLA and AA are also under development following the E claim form for Carers Allowance that was launched in December 2003. These should also be available later this year.

Since November 2002, a new interactive claiming process has been trialled in Glasgow Disability Benefits Centre. Customers who request a claim form by telephone are directed to a customer claim advisor who asks some preliminary questions to establish the broad basis of the claim. A tailored claim form is then produced by the computer system that supports the process and forwarded to the customer for completion. The form generated is a maximum of 18 pages, considerably shorter than the existing 47 page form. The results of this trial and the clerical claim form tests will inform the further modernisation of the processing of Disability Benefits.