§ Mr. Tony BanksTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will provide a breakdown for each of the last four years for which figures are available of single payments made to the following categories of claimants from his Department's Brighton office: pensioners, single parents and long-term unemployed.
§ Mr. ScottI regret that figures for single payments made to single parents and to the long-term unemployed are not kept by local offices. Figures for single payments made to pensioners from the Brighton DHSS office are as follows:
Year Number Amount £ April 1983—April 1984 680 44,925 April 1984—April 1985 1,132 58,755 April 1985—April 1986 1,471 78,045 April 1986—April 19871 11,683 1101,007 1 The figures for 1986–87 are provisional and subject to amendment.
§ Mr. Tony BanksTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will identify the average size of single payments made to claimants from his Department's Brighton office for each of the last four financial years together with details of how many payments were made in the following bands: £0 to £50, £50 to £100, £100 to £150, £150 to £200, £200 to £250, £250 to £300, £300 to £350, £350 to £400, £400 to £450, £450 to £500 and over £500 for each of those years.
§ Mr. ScottDetails of how many single payments were made in each of the bands quoted is not kept.
During the last four financial years the average size of each single payment made by the Brighton DHSS office was as follows:
332W
Financial year Average amount of payment £ 1983–84 65.77 1984–85 61.84 1985–86 71.64 1986–871 185.10 1 The figure for 1986–87 is provisional and subject to amendment.
§ Mr. Tony BanksTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will provide details for the last four years for which figures are available of the number of single payments made by his Department's Brighton office for(a) household furniture, (b) clothing, (c) bedding and (d) replacement household equipment, and as a result of urgent payments made to replace domestic and household goods affected by natural disasters (fire, flood and so on).
§ Mr. ScottI regret that the information requested is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.