Family Credit (Hansard, 2 June 1992)

§ Mr. Kirkwood
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assumptions he made about (i) the case load take-up rate and (ii) the expenditure take-up rate of family credit when calculating the extra cost of £49 million of the change in qualifying hours threshold for income support/family credit.

§ Mr. Burt
No explicit assumption on take-up rates were required, or employed, in calculating the cost of the hours rule change.
The effects of changes in entitlement are calculated by adjusting modelled entitlement to reflect the ratio of receipt to modelled entitlement under existing policies. This allows for a number of factors that affect policy cost estimates, including incomplete take-up of benefit. These calculations are then further adjusted by adding estimates of behavioural changes likely to be induced by the policy change.

§ Mr. Tony Banks
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of people in Greater London entitled to claim family credit actually receive the benefit.

§ Mr. Burt
The information requested is not available. Estimates of the total number of families eligible for family credit can be obtained only for Great Britain as a whole, and only retrospectively, from Family Expenditure Survey data.

§ Mrs. Ewing
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many weeks elapsed between application and receipt of family credit for(a) employed people and (b) self-employed people in each of the years for which family credit has been available; and what is the current figure;
(2) if he will list the total number of appeals lodged by (a) employed and (b) self-employed people against decisions not to grant family credit to applicants in each year since its inception; and if he will show the number of successful appeals in each year.

§ Mr. Burt
The administration of family credit is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member with such information as is available and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.