§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are claiming family credit in the Scunthorpe travel-to-work area. [15499]
§ Mr. Roger EvansThe 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 Mr. Elliot Morley, dated 13 February 1997:
The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many people are claiming Family Credit (FC) within the Scunthorpe travel to work area.The information is not available in the format requested. It may be helpful if I explain that FC is administered centrally by the Family Credit Unit. Statistics are produced on a national basis and provide the number of families in receipt of FC within a particular Benefits Agency (BA) office area at a given date. However, this only serves as a "snap-shot" of the position at that given date and does not provide details of the number of families in receipt of FC annually.At 3 January 1997, there were 2,029 families in receipt of FC within the Scunthorpe BA office area. This has been extracted from a total of 687,917 recipients nationally. It should be noted that these figures are provisional and subject to change.I hope you find this reply useful.