§ 47. Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when, precisely, the Department's recent survey of applicants for family income supplement was carried out; what was the total size of the sample; which attributes of those sampled were analysed; and if he will publish the findings.
§ Mr. DeanThe sample size and the date of the survey carried out by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys were given in my reply to the hon. Member on 27th March.
In reply to another Question from the hon. Member on 24th January, my right hon. Friend said that we were considering whether the results of the survey should be published.
I am writing to the hon. Member, in reply to a letter he recently addressed to an officer of my Department, giving him the main findings derived from it. The survey dealt with the eligibility of families, whether or not they had claimed, their reasons for not claiming if entitled, and their knowledge of the scheme; it was not designed to estimate the numbers eligible, and the sample was too small to provide the detailed information requested. This information is however available in statistics, based on awards, compiled by the Department. I am arranging for copies of the relevant tables to be sent to the hon. Member.—[Vol. 834. c. 15–16; Vol. 829, c. 345.]
§ Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) in the Department's recent survey of applicants for family income supplement, how many in absolute numbers of the successful claimants were single-parent families and how many two-parent families; and in each case how many had respectively, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 or more children;
187W(2) in the Department's recent survey of applicants for family income supplement, how many successful claimants in absolute numbers had earnings below £11 a week; and how many had earnings within each further successive £1 band up to £35 a week;
(3) in the Department's recent survey of applicants for family income supplement, what was the breakdown among successful claimants combining income level and number of children, respectively, in one-parent and two-parent families;
(4) in the Department's recent survey of applicants for family income supplement, what was the breakdown of successful claimants by region and area; and what was the breakdown combining region and, respectively, income level and number of children.