Family Credit (Hansard, 18 July 1996)

§ Mr. Roger Evans

The administration of family credit is a matter for Peter Mathison, chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Peter Mathison to Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, dated 17 July 1996:

The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking if he will list the number of claimants for Family Credit (FC) in (a) Crewe and Nantwich and (b) Cheshire for each of the last five years.

The information is not available in the format requested. The FC computer system holds records of the total number of claims received, awarded and disallowed on a national basis. Statistics are available which provide the number of families in receipt of FC within a BA office area on a given date. These offices do not correspond to constituency boundaries or to specific geographical areas.

Details relating to FC claims are normally destroyed after 18 months, therefore the information is available from 1993 only. The statistics available are shown in the attached Annex.

I hope you find this reply useful.

624W

Families in receipt of Family Credit at that date
Date of Scan	BA office-Crewe	Cheshire
20 August 1993	1,393	13,895
15 April 1994	1,455	14,686
10 November 1994	1,563	15,553
13 April 1995	1,676	16,252
10 November 1995	1,785	17,503
16 February 1996	1,862	18,164
7 June 1996	1,966	19,380

Figures are provisional and subject to amendment. The BA office at Crewe includes details for Nantwich.

Cheshire covers the following BA officesi:-Chester, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Hyde, Macclesfield, Manchester-Sale, Northwich, Stockport, Warrington, Widnes and Wilmslow.

Whilst these offices will primarily deal with their relevant part of the Cheshire County, they may also service parts of neighbouring counties. It is not possible to separate the figures presented and exclude any customers in receipt of Family Credit in those other countries.