§ Mr. Corbettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the average time taken for the Child Benefit Branch to process claims for child benefit; how many claims have so far been received; how many claims are 473W still outstanding; and whether he is satisfied with the efficiency of the Child Benefit Branch.
§ Mr. Orme,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 15th November 1977; Vol. 939, c.143],gave the following information:
The average time taken by the Child Benefit Centre to process a claim depends largely on whether or not the claim can be handled entirely by automatic processes. New claims handled automatically now take an average of 10 days from the date of receipt at the centre to the date the letter awarding benefit is sent to the claimant; claims for additional children take an average of five days. Nearly 50 per cent. of new claims and 85 per cent. of claims for additional children fall into this category. Claims which require special clerical action—usually writing out to the claimant for more information—naturally take much longer; the average time from receipt to issue of the award letter is six weeks. The total number of claims to child benefit, including those for children qualifying since the scheme started, was 2,957,000 at the latest count. About 52,000 claims are still outstanding, representing about three weeks' intake of claims. As to the efficiency of the Child Benefit Centre, I am aware that there have been some serious delays and some mistakes. The centre has had to tackle an enormous task, which has proved even larger than we had originally estimated from experience of the family allowance scheme. Inevitably a high proportion of the staff needed more experience. But I am satisfied that the management of the centre responded well to the problems they faced, and credit is due to the staff as a whole who worked substantial amounts of overtime, with the result that the situation is now much improved.