HC Deb 16 January 1991 vol 183 cc528-9W
Mr. Meacher

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide a breakdown of current family credit recipients by(a) employees, (b) self-employed, (c) mortgage owners and (d) tenants, further broken down by sex.

Mr. Jack

At the end of May 1990, the latest date for which figures are available, the information is as follows:

Number
(a) Employees
Male 139,000
Female 129,000
Total 268,000
(b) Self-employed
Male 38,000
Female 9,000
Total 47,000

No information is available about the number of family credit claimants who are mortgage payers or tenants.

Mr. Meacher

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations have been received by his Department concerning the problems faced by the self-employed who wish to claim family credits; and what action has been taken by his Department to deal with the problems.

Mr. Jack

Most of the representations have related to business income for family credit purposes being determined on a different basis from that used for income tax purposes. Some have also been made about the length of time taken to deal with claims from the self-employed. We have been monitoring the position since the introduction of family credit in 1988 and have introduced a number of changes to help the self-employed, the principal one was to amend the legislation relating to the acceptability of business accounts as evidence.

We are commissioning in-depth research into the self-employed in family credit, which will pay particular attention to the way in which the amount of business income is determined.

Mr. Meacher

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the average time for processing family credit claims from the day the claim is received to the first day of payment of an award in the case of(a) employees and (b) self-employed.

Mr. Jack

Information is available only for the average time from receipt of the claim to when the decision is made. On this basis, the latest information, for the 12 months ended December 1990, about average clearance times is as follows:

working days
All claims 20.45
Employees 18.73
Self-employed 30.19

Order books are usually issued on the working day following the decision and should be received by payees on the next day.

Mr. Meacher

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what are the average wages of current recipients of family credit; and what is the average duration of family credit awards.

Mr. Jack

For the end of May 1990, the latest date for which information is available, the average gross weekly earnings in cases in which the main earner was an employee was £108.36. The corresponding figure for all cases, including the self-employed, was £102.12.

Family credit is awarded for a fixed duration of 26 weeks. At the end of the award period a fresh claim has to be made and, if benefit is awarded, it will again last for 26 weeks.