§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if all the 1,414 extra civil servants his Department proposes to take on to deal with claims for social security benefits will be employed in regional and local offices.
§ Mr. EnnalsAll will be employed in local offices.
§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of 349W the 1,414 extra staff he estimates will still be needed to deal with claims for social security benefits when the winter is over.
§ Mr. EnnalsAll, on the present forecast of workloads.
§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of the 1,414 extra civil servants his Department proposes to take on will be fraud investigators.
§ Mr. EnnalsNo specific provision for fraud investigators is included. The provision of adequate staffing levels in local offices, however, will enable all work, including that relating to fraud, to be dealt with more efficiently.
§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if it is his policy to react to every overtime ban by local DHSS staff with a promise to increase the number of such staff.
§ Mr. EnnalsNo. The recent increase in staff is the outcome of a regular quarterly review of total staffing requirements and has been provided to meet increased work loads in local offices.
§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he examined in detail methods of reorganising local DHSS offices and transferring staff before deciding to take on an extra 1,414 civil servants to deal with claims for social security benefits.
§ Mr. EnnalsThe additional staff are being provided to meet net increases in the work loads of local offices over the country as a whole. Concurrently, adjustments are being made to the distribution of existing local office complements where work loads have exceeded or fallen short of forecasts.
§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will give a breakdown by grade of the 1,414 extra civil servants his Department proposes to take on; and if he will make a rough estimate of the total salary bill this increase in staff will represent in the first year of employment.
§ Mr. EnnalsThis information will not be available until the individual local office complements have been revised to take account of these additional posts.