HC Deb 23 January 1989 vol 145 cc414-5W
Mr. Frank Field

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what research his Department has commissioned or carried out on or related to the living standards of claimants or the adequacy of the scale rates of supplementary benefit or income support in each year since 1979.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

There have been two major surveys on living standards during the period. "The Survey of Living Standards During Unemployment" was commissioned in 1983 and is to be supplemented by a case study, "The Living Standards of Thirty (Unemployed) Families", commissioned in 1987. "The Financial Circumstances of Disabled Households—Report Two of the OPCS Disability Survey" was commissioned in 1985.

A number of related studies have also been carried out during the period. These are, by date of commissioning: 1978, "For Richer for Poorer", a DHSS cohort study of unemployed men; 1979 (publication date) "Social Security Research—The Definition and Measurement of Poverty", the report of a seminar; 1981, "Study of the 1980 Reform of Supplementary Benefit"; 1986, "Elderly Claimants in Residential Care and Nursing Homes"; 1986, DSS in-house study of the incomes and expenditure of disabled people using data from the family expenditure survey.

In addition, the Department has had the benefit of several studies on these subjects, commissioned by other organisations.