Fuel Poverty (Hansard, 6 January 2004)

§ Mr. Roy Beggs
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he is taking to assist those pensioners with small occupational pensions or savings who are not eligible for the Warm Homes Scheme to upgrade to a non-manual central heating system. [145313]

§ Mr. Spellar
The eligibility criteria for the Warm Homes Scheme is kept under regular review to ensure that as many vulnerable people as possible can benefit. For example, it was recently revised to include pension credit.
Pensioners with additional income who are ineligible for assistance through the Warm Homes Scheme may qualify for a Disabled Facilities Grant which includes provision for assistance towards the cost of replacing heating systems.

§ Mr. Beggs
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the average time taken in the last 12 months was to process assessments of applications to upgrade heating systems through the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's Disabled Facilities Grant Scheme, broken down by Health and Social Services trust area. [145314]

§ Mr. Spellar
The information is not available in the format requested as works required to be carried out in a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) application are not recorded separately. DFG covers a wide range of works for access to and around a house as well as facilities within a house. Where a heating upgrade is required this is likely to form only a small part of the works required.
In DFG cases generally, the average time taken from date of receipt of preliminary inquiry to the issue of schedule of works for DFGs in the year up to the end of October 2003 was 278 days. This figure includes the time for the occupational therapist's assessment, which took an average of 192 days.
Once the applicant has decided to proceed with the grant application, the average time from the receipt of completed documentation to the issue of formal approval, including the test of resources, was 131 days. Over the last six months 98 per cent. of cases have been processed within the agreed target time of 26 weeks.
The Housing Executive is currently reviewing its arrangements regarding the processing of DFG cases with the aim of further reducing the processing time for the stages that are within its direct control.