Claimants (Hansard, 1 December 1993)

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth

Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service Agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Mr. M. Fogden to Ms Clare Short, dated 1 December 1993: As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to write to you direct to respond to your Parliamentary Question about how many people were interviewed at each stage and how many of those who claimed unemployment benefit (including continuing to claim cases) had their claim disallowed following availability, actively seeking work or refusing suitable employment action taken at (a) the new claims stage, (b) 13 week interviews, (c) Restart interviews and (d) other counselling interviews for 1992–93 and 1993–94 for each region and for Great Britain as a whole; and if he will make a statement. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency. This information is not available in the precise form which you request it. However, the attached tables show, for each region, the numbers of interviews conducted at each stage of unemployment together with the total number of disallowances by Adjudication Officers on each eligibility condition. We have no information available that tells us the stage of unemployment at which the disallowances occurred. Also, the Employment Service has changed it's performance monitoring at national level for 1993–94 and the numbers of interviews for this year cannot be given in exactly the same format as the previous year. Table 1 contains information for the 1992–93 operational year. Table 2 shows information to June 1993—these are the latest published figures for Adjudication Officer's decisions. I hope this is helpful. As decided by the Administration Committee of the House of Commons, Chief Executive replies to written Parliamentary Questions will now be published in the Official Report. I will also place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.

615W

Table 1—1992–93
	Interviews	Disallowances by adjudication officer
	New Claims	13 week	Restart	Other	Availability	Restricted Availability	Actively Seeking Employment	Refusal of Employment
Northern	233,739	43,146	172,212	24,639	1,506	239	132	17
Yorkshire and Humberside	407,439	65,186	209,592	43,694	5,249	826	413	22
East Midlands and Eastern	443,838	44,606	252,469	36,894	4,042	500	46	24
London and South East	1,412,962	238,039	854,311	83,414	18,787	6,589	483	81
South West	378,761	45,923	200,833	32,488	3,708	660	149	17
Office for Wales	217,596	40,200	148,542	32,011	1,676	371	78	5
West Midlands	407,148	50,369	258,437	36,254	3,976	458	132	8
North West	567,287	121,882	441,163	77,417	5,526	2,089	853	63
Office for Scotland	447,337	81,559	280,722	27,858	3,211	521	253	15
NATIONAL TOTAL	4,516,107	730,910	2,818,181	394,569	47,681	12,253	2,539	252

Table 2—1993–94 (to June)
	Interviews	Decisions by adjudication officer
	New claims	Restart	Other	Availability	Restricted availability	Actively seeking employment	Refusal of employment
Northern	54,302	43,546	12,065	362	55	44	1
Yorkshire and Humberside	87,060	64,264	31,306	1,077	278	112	12
East Midlands and Eastern	94,252	71,221	15,007	845	187	44	11
London and South East	302,130	258,318	24,240	3,265	1,443	141	9
South West	78,703	62,601	12,122	577	115	43	7
Office for Wales	49,972	42,182	13,328	304	73	22	3
West Midlands	82,554	71,986	12,776	696	146	30	8
North West	123,178	116,063	43,502	1,086	451	253	16
Office for Scotland	101,287	72,889	21,036	593	94	89	6
National Total	973,438	803,070	185,382	8,805	2,842	778	73