§ Mr. Evansasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of the 20 claimants of unemployment benefit in St. Helens who withdrew their claim for unemployment benefit after being interviewed by the Department of Employment's regional benefit investigation team subsequently claimed supplementary benefit; and what is the total annualised cost of their combined social security benefit.
§ Dr. BoysonThere has been no successful claim to supplementary benefit in St. Helens as a result of withdrawal of a claim to unemployment benefit following interview by the Department of Employment's regional benefit investigation team.
§ Mr. Ormeasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many claims for repayment of money wrongly deducted from supplementary benefit on grounds of voluntary unemployment have been received by local offices of his Deparment in Salford as a result of the advertising campaign in March 1984; how many payments have resulted from these claims; and how many such payments have been made prior to the advertising campaign as a result of the check of current files and the publicity for dormant cases, respectively.
§ Dr. BoysonNo payments in respect of money wrongly deducted from supplementary benefits on grounds of54W voluntary unemployment have been made by the Department's Salford local offices to former claimants following the advertising campaign in March.
The number of unsuccessful enquiries made is not recorded. 117 and five payments respectively resulted from the check of current files by Salford north and Salford south local offices. One payment was made to a former claimant by Salford north office following the earlier publicity.
§ Mr. Wallaceasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he intends to amend the supplementary benefit regulations to allow regional climatic variations to be taken into account in determining additional payments for exceptional heating allowance and the fuel allowance.
§ Dr. BoysonWe have no present plans to amend the supplementary benefit regulations relating to heating additions or to single payments for fuel in periods of exceptionally severe weather. As, however, I explained to the hon. Member in my reply to his question on 14 June at column567, we are studying the significance of climate as a factor influencing expenditure on fuel in different parts of Britain.
§ Ms. Harmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether the working group to monitor the impact of changes in Supplementary Benefit Requirement Regulation No. 9 which was referred to by the Minister for Social Security at a meeting with directors of social services on 29th February is being set up.
§ Dr. Boyson[pursuant to his reply, 12 June 1984, c. 447]: The Department has written to the local authority associations inviting them to participate in a joint working group aimed at improving collaboration between local authorities and the Department in relation to the support of residents in private and voluntary homes.
§ Mr. Fatchettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, for those offices covering the Leeds travel-to-work area, how many unemployed people were claiming supplementary benefit during the last month for which statistics are available; and what was the figure for the comparable month in the previous year.
§ Dr. Boyson[pursuant to his reply, 15 June 1984, c. 593–594]: The numbers of unemployed supplementary benefits claimants whose cases were being handled by the Leeds local offices in May this year and May 1983 are as follows:
(thousands) Local office 1984 1983 Leeds north 8.0 8.5 Leeds north west 5.5 5.6 Leeds south 3.8 3.9 Leeds south east 3.9 4.0 Leeds west 3.8 4.0