§ Helen JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in the Warrington, North constituency are(a) in receipt of family credit and (b) in receipt of income support. [24826]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyThe administration of Family Credit and Income Support is a matter for Peter Mathison, Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to my hon. Friend.
119WLetter from Peter Mathison to Helen Jones, dated 23 January 1998:
The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many families in the Warrington North constituency are in receipt of Family Credit (FC), and how many are in receipt of Income Support (IS).The information is not available in the format requested. The FC Unit produces statistics which show the number of families in receipt of FC within individual Benefits Agency (BA) office areas. IS produces information which relates to the number of families in receipt within a BA District.Warrington North forms a part of the BA's North Cheshire District this includes the offices at Warrington and Widnes. The available information is shown below:
Families in receipt Family Credit, as at September 1997 Warrington office 3,062 Widnes office 1,913 Income Support, as at November 1997 North Cheshire District 25,857
Permanent Non-permanent Headcount Whole time equivalent1 Fixed term contract headcount Casuals headcount2 Casuals whole time equivalent 31 March 1993 3,230 n/a 3n/a n/a n/a 31 March 1994 4,997 4,787.4 138 n/a n/a 31 March 1995 6,312 5,974.3 79 470 445.5 31 March 1996 6,770 6,660.6 352 281 275.9 31 March 1997 8,068 7,880.4 327 533 503.3 31 December 1997 7,678 8,052.7 948 469 452.2 1 The permanent whole time equivalent totals include fixed term contract staff. 2 Statistics for casual staff were not kept prior to 1995. 3 The fixed term contract staff figure for 1993 is included in the permanent total. Information on current estimates for staffing in the Agency over the next three financial years are shown in the table below:
Financial year Estimated staff 1998–99 8,344 1999–2000 8,319 2000–01 7,936 These figures are based on whole time equivalents.
All staffing figures exclude staff in the Belfast Centre, as these staff are Northern Ireland Civil Servants.The Agency's caseload comprises two broad categories, ie work-on-hand, where the case has not been cleared by assessment or by closure for other reasons, and live and assessed cases, where an assessment (either full or interim) has been made.The details of the Agency's live and assessed cases are provided by the DSS Analytical Services Division, and appear in the Quartely Summary of Statistic (QSS). Publication of QSS has120WFigures are provisional and subject to change. This information serves as a "snap-shot" of the position at the date of the scan and does not provide details of the number of families in receipt annually.I hope you find this reply useful.