§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether it is the policy of his Department that specialist claims control visit towns or areas during the periods when major redundancies are taking place; and whether he will instruct specialist claims control not to visit Cowdenbeath in January when the Fishers Control factory is to be closed.
§ Dr. BoysonSpecialist claims control teams visit local offices on a cyclical basis and programmes are normally arranged some months in advance. It has not been the practice to change such cyclical programmes because of local redundancies and we do not propose to cancel the visit to Cowdenbeath.
§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will publish the monthly returns for 1983 of specialist claims control for Great Britain and for the Scottish region; and whether he will indicate the monthly numbers, for 1983, of those claimants who have had their benefits withdrawn as a result of specialist claims control work.
§ Dr. BoysonRecords of specialist claims control exercises are not maintained on a monthly basis. A full return for 1983 is not yet available but records to date of exercises completed during that year show 17,779 cases investigated nationally and 6,888 cases where benefit was subsequently adjusted. The corresponding figures for Scotland are 1,987 and 709. Separate figures of cases where benefit ceased as a result of specialist claims control work were not recorded for the whole of 1983.
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§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will explain in detail how the savings figure attributed to the work of specialist claims control is calculated and in particular whether it is the policy of his Department to (a) multiply weekly benefits saved by 52 weeks and (b) include in the savings figure money recovered that arises from errors of his Department in calculating benefits.
§ Dr. BoysonI refer the hon. Member to appendix A of the statement placed in the Library by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) on 4 June 1981. [Vol. 5, c.407.] The method of calculating savings in respect of the work of special investigators and fraud officers applies equally to specialist claims control. Overpayments which result from official error are treated as irrecoverable and are not included in savings figures.
§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether there have been any prosecutions to date that have directly resulted from the work of specialist claims control.
§ Dr. BoysonSeparate statistics are not maintained of prosecutions which resulted from specialist claims control action.