§ Mr. Sproatasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will set out the management information services questions on statistics required by each regional headquarters from local offices of his Department in their region, for the the latest available month, by region.
§ Mr. DeakinsI assume that the hon. Member's Question relates to the type of management information obtained from local offices by regional offices.
547WLocal offices are required regularly to report at four-weekly intervals the number of claims for all types of benefit which have been received and, for most, the number which have been cleared. Similar information is given for work arising from inquiries related to national insurance contributions and suspected fraud.
Local offices also report:
- 1. the numbers of payments made by giro or order book,
- 2. the numbers of callers at the local office and visits made by local office staff,
- 3. references to the regional medical officers of health,
- 4. the quality of certain aspects of the work,
- 5. the manpower used.
From time to time this is supplemented by other information but the nature of the additional information changes from period to period as it depends on the particular circumstances of individual regions at different times.