§ Mr. Dudley Smithasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will institute an investigation into the failure of his central benefit office at Newcastle upon Tyne to reply to two urgent telephone requests from his Department's local office at Leamington Spa for permission to make emergency payments to a widow whose pension and child benefit books had been stolen during May, resulting in the office having, contrary to the usual procedures, to make emergency payments on its own responsibility.
§ Mrs. Chalker[pursuant to her reply, 19 June 1980, c. 639]: I have ascertained that there was, in this instance, a breakdown in the normal arrangements for communication between a local office and the central pensions branch in dealing with an emergency of this kind. I am satisfied, however, that this was an individual failure and that there is no weakness in the general procedural arrangements.
The local office misapplied current instructions which provide for emergency payments to be made in appropriate circumstances without prior authority from the central pensions branch. I regret, therefore, that the local office misinformed my hon. Friend by saying that the emergency payments were made contrary to the normal procedures.