Invalidity Benefit (Hansard, 13 January 1997)

§ Mr. Burt

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

Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Allan Rogers, dated 18 December 1996: The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many people are currently receiving Invalidity Benefit (IVB) in the Rhondda benefit district; what percentage this is of the total population of working age; and what are the average percentage for (a) Wales and (b) England and Wales. The information is not available in the format requested. Sickness Benefit and IVB were replaced by Incapacity Benefit (IB) on 13 April 1995. The Rhondda area is dealt with by Tonypandy Benefits office, this forms part of the Benefits Agency (BA) South Wales District. At 31 May 1996, the latest date for which figures are available, 9,820 customers were in receipt of IB from the Tonypandy Benefits Office. Data on the working population is not available for individual BA office therefore it is not possible to give the percentage of the working population in receipt of IB for Tonypandy Benefits office. The available information is shown in the attached table. I hope you find this reply helpful.

Percentage of total population of working age in receipt of incapacity benefit
	Per cent.
Tonypandy Benefits Office	n/a
Wales	8.7
England and Wales	4.3

The Incapacity Benefit figures are taken from a 5 per cent. sample of the PSCS (INCAP) computer system at 31 May 1996, and exclude a small number of cases not held on this system. Percentage population figures are calculated from the latest figures available (mid 1994) from "Population Trends" published by the Office for National Statistics, Summer 96 edition.