HC Deb 14 February 1989 vol 147 c160W
Mr. David Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have applied for a transitional payment to date; how many applications have been(a) awarded, (b) refused and (c) are still outstanding; and what has been the average payment made.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Of the 423,657 applications for housing benefit transitional payments received at 8 February, 177,948 cases have been successful and 204,883 have been refused. Of the 40,826 applications outstanding, 25,737 are awaiting return of inquiry forms from the local authority. The average weekly payment is £3.89.

Mr. David Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the average length of time taken to process an application for a transitional payment.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

The clearance times for applications for transitional payments will vary considerably from case to case and depend on how long the local authorities take to return the inquiry forms and whether further inquiries have to be made from the unit. For straightforward cases, it takes at present two days from receiving an application in the unit to sending the inquiry form to the local authority, 35 days for the local authority to return the inquiry form to the unit, and a further five days from receiving that inquiry form at the unit to deciding whether a payment can be made. The transitional payments unit has contacted a number of local authorities to encourage them to return the inquiry forms promptly.

Mr. David Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State For Social Security how many full and part-time employees there are in the transitional payments unit in Glasgow.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

There are 360 full-time employees at the transitional payments unit. Of these 158 are permanent DSS staff; the remainder are employed on a limited period contract. There are no part-time employees.