§ Ms. Harmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will state the number of staff employed in his Department's local office in (a) August 1979 and (b) August 1986 in the Greater London area;
(2) if he will state the number of benefit claims in action, live load, in (a) August 1979 and (b) August 1986 in the Greater London area.
§ Mr. LyellComprehensive figures are not available on the number of staff employed in the Department's offices within the Greater London area before April 1983. Some offices within the Greater London area deal with areas outside the Greater London area as the boundaries are not coterminous.
Information that is available is as follows:
988W
August 1979 August 1983 August 1986 Number of staff employed in the Greater London area n.a. 9,402 9,942 Number of people receiving supplementary benefit1 446,589 658,564 775,227
1 Based on a 100 per cent. count of cases in action in August. n.a. = not available.
Direct comparisons between the number of staff and claims are misleading as workloads vary considerably by type and duration of claim and the action that has to be taken. All these factors vary over time as a result of legislative, policy and procedural changes. Examples of such changes are the introduction of housing benefit and postal claim forms.
§ Ms. Harmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will state the number of benefit claims awaiting processing, backlog, in (a) August 1979 and (b) August 1986 in the Greater London area.
§ Mr. LyellFigures for the number of claims awaiting action in local offices are not available for the period before 1983. On 30 August 1983, 21,691 claims for supplementary benefit were awaiting action in local offices serving the Greater London area. The comparable figure for 26 August this year was 38,712.