§ Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many administrative staff deal with social security claims; and what are the number of social security claimants and the ratio of staff to claimants for each of the last five years (a) nationally, (b) at the King's Lynn, (c) at the Peterborough and (d) at the Cambridge local offices of his Department, respectively.
§ Mr. WhitneyI assume the hon. Member to be concerned with the staffing of local social security offices which is described in a guide held in the Library.
The number of staff allocated (a) to all local offices, (b) at the King's Lynn, (c) at the Peterborough and (d) at the Cambridge local offices of the Department at 1 November for each of the last five years is as follows:
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 All local offices 62,424 63,642 61,871 56,703 57,420 King's Lynn 204 208 207 193 192 Peterborough 249 271 257 234 242 Cambridge 215 221 205 181 199 It would be disproportionately expensive to provide statistics — which for some benefits are kept for the number of claimants and for others of the number of claims made—to match the table. In any case staffing levels are fixed by reference to workloads and the latter will vary in relation to policy changes (e.g., the introduction of housing benefit) and procedural changes (e.g., the introduction of a postal claim form for supplementary benefit for the unemployed.)