§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many supplementary benefit claimants were registered at the Woolwich office of his Department at the most recent convenient date compared to the numbers at a similar point in each of the preceding eight years.
§ Mr. LyellThe total number of people receiving supplementary benefit from the Department's local office362W at Woolwich on 13 August—the latest figures available — and on comparable dates in each of the preceding eight years was:
Number 1986 18,982 1985 18,380 1984 17,516 1983 16,212 1982 14,895 1981 12,585 1980 11,016 1979 10,600 1978 11,101 Source: 100 per cent. count of cases in action.
§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many supplementary benefit payments were made by the Woolwich office of his Department to travellers or others with no fixed address during 1985; what was the total sum involved; and how these figures compare to those for the preceding seven years.
§ Mr. LyellThe Department's local offices do not keep separate statistics on the number of supplementary benefit payments made to travellers or others with no fixed address.
The information is therefore not readily available and could be obtained only by a special exercise which would be disproportionately costly.
§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the total sum paid out in single payments by his Department's Woolwich office in 1979 and 1985; and what was the total number of claimants in each case.
§ Mr. LyellDuring the year ending on 8 April 1986, the Department's Woolwich office made 16,827 single payments amounting to £1,462,009. These figures are provisional and some claimants may have received more than one payment. Comparable information for 1979 is not available.
§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many claimants at his Department's Woolwich office are currently awaiting an appeal to a supplementary benefits tribunal compared to the figures of (a) two and (b) five years previously.
§ Mr. LyellI refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) on 23 October at column981.
§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the current waiting time for a supplementary benefit tribunal hearing in the Greater London area compared with that of (a) two and (b) five years previously.
§ Mr. LyellNational administrative statistics of social security appeals are not disaggregated for localities smaller than a social security region. The social security regions which include London were restructured in July 1982 when the three former regions were reduced to two and again less radically in April 1983. The boundaries of these regions are shown in appendix 4 of "Social Security Statistics 1983". As a consequence, the estimates for 1981 below are not comparable with those for 1984 and 1985.
363WSubject to these caveats, the average number of weeks from lodgement of an appeal to a hearing for all supplementary benefit appeals in the London regions was as follows:
Social Security Region Quarter Ending December 1981 Number of weeks Quarter ending December 1984 Number of weeks Quarter ending December 1985 Number of weeks London North 6.1 14.0 15.2 London South 7.3 14.0 18.9 London West 6.8
§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many severe weather payments have been made during 1986 to applicants at his Department's Woolwich office; and what was the total sum paid.
§ Mr. LyellLocal offices have been asked to make a return so that the number of payments and amounts paid can be calculated. Not all these returns have yet been received, but it is known that the Woolwich office made 279 payments, totalling £10,081.