§ Mr. McGradyTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people made an application in respect of community care grants and loans from the social fund system at each of the social security offices between 1 April 1988 and 31 March 1994; of these how many were accepted; how much was paid out; how many were refused; and what were the reasons for refusal.
§ Mr. AncramResponsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Social Security Agency under its chief executive, Mr. Alec Wylie. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from A. Wylie to Mr. Eddie McGrady, dated 28 April 1994:
I have been asked o reply to your recent Parliamentary Question relating to Social Fund statistics.I am sorry I am unable to provide information in_the form you have requested as:information is not readily available in the period 1 April 1988 to 31 March 1990 and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost; 474W details for each Social Security Office can only be given for the 1990–91 year. As the Social Fund has been managed on a District basis from April 1991 information has been supplied accordingly;an individual can make more than one application to the Social Fund the figures shown therefore refer to the number of applications received rather than number of people making application;information on the number of refusals is only held as a percentage of decisions made;information is not held on the reasons for refusal of applications. The available information is set out in the tables, which are too long to be printed in the Official Report and arrangements will be made for a copy to be deposited in the Library. Statistics on Social Fund applications is also available in the Library under "Social Fund Data" and these figures are updated on a monthly basis.I hope that you will find this information helpful.