§ Mr. Barnesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many civil servants are required to administer the supplementary benefits scheme; and how many claimants this covers.
§ Mr. DeanOwing to the advanced programme of integration of contributory benefit and supplementary benefit local offices, it is no longer possible separately to identify the staff engaged specifically on either type of work, and to provide a reliable estimate of apportionment would involve an inordinate amount of work. However, as a rough approximation, it may be taken that of the total of 64,713 staff engaged on social security work, other than central administration, on 1st April, 1972, slightly more than one-third were employed on supplementary benefits work. On 16th May there were 2,951,000 supplementary benefit claimants.