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Dept of Social Security;Social Security Benefits Agency

Answer

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in (a) the Sutton and Cheam constituency and (b) the London borough of Sutton have been in receipt of (i) Income Support, (ii) Disability Living Allowance, (iii) Incapacity Benefit, (iv) Unemployment Benefit and (v) Housing Benefit in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement. [134890] Angela Eagle: The administration of benefits is a matter for Alexis Cleveland, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. She will write to the hon. Member. Letter from Alexis Cleveland to Mr. Paul Burstow, dated 6 November 2000: The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to respond to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many people in (a) the Sutton and Cheam constituency and (b) the London Borough of Sutton have been in receipt of (i) income support, (ii) disability living allowance, (iii) incapacity benefit, (iv) unemployment benefit, and (v) housing benefit in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement. The data is not available in the requested format, however the information that is available is supplied in the attached tables. I hope this is helpful. (i) Income Support _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Sutton and Cheam constituency London borough of Sutton May 1990 -- 8.1 1991 -- 8.8 1992 -- 8.9 1993 -- 12.7 1994 -- 12.8 1995 -- 12.7 1996 -- 12.3 1997 -- 8.6 1998 -- 8.2 1999 2.8 8.0 2000 3.1 7.9 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. Figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample and therefore subject to sampling error. 2. Figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and quoted in thousands. 3. Income Support for the unemployed was replaced by Income Based Jobseekers Allowance in October 1996. Figures up to and including May 1996 included the unemployed on Income Support. Source: Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiries, 1990-2000 (ii) Recipients of Disability Living Allowance _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Sutton and Cheam constituency London borough of Sutton May 1993 1,200 2,700 1994 1,400 2,600 1995 1,300 2,600 1996 1,400 2,900 1997 1,400 3,300 1998 1,329 3,414 1999 1,418 3,548 2000 1,505 3,707 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. Figures up to 1997 are based on 5 per cent. data and are rounded to the nearest hundred. For later years the figures are based on 100 per cent. data and are unrounded. 2. Figures not available for 1992 owing to incomplete regional data. 3. Yearly figures are given at 31 May. Source: DSS Information Centre (iii) Incapacity Benefit _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Sutton and Cheam constituency London borough of Sutton May 1995 -- 2.6 1996 -- 2.5 1997 -- 2.5 1998 1.0 2.3 1999 1.0 2.2 2000 0.9 2.3 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. Incapacity Benefit figures by Parliamentary Constituency are unavailable before 1998. 2. Figures taken from 5 per cent. samples of the benefit computer system, and exclude a small number of cases held clerically. A rating factor has been used on figures for the London borough of Sutton from May 1996 to May 1999, to account for missing postcodes. 3. Figures are expressed as thousands and are rounded to the nearest hundred. 4. Yearly figures are given at 31 May. (iv) Unemployment Benefit No figures are available for Unemployment Benefit by either parliamentary constituency or Local Authority however figures for Jobseekers Allowance are provided in the table below. Unemployment benefit ceased in 6th October 1996 and Jobseekers Allowance began from 7th October 1996. Jobseeker's Allowance _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Sutton and Cheam constituency London borough of Sutton August 1997 -- 2.5 May 1998 -- 2.3 August 1998 0.9 -- May 1999 1.1 2.4 May 2000 1.7 1.7 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. Claimant figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and expressed in thousands. 2. Sample size 5 per cent., therefore subject to sampling error. 3. Jobseeker's Allowance replaced Income Support for the unemployed in october 1996. 4. Figures are for all claimants including those with nil benefit. Source: Jobseeker's Allowance Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, August 1997 to May 2000 (v) Housing Benefit _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year London borough of Sutton May 1992 9,470 1993 10,170 1994 10,280 1995 10,610 1996 10,880 1997 10,690 1998 9,980 1999 9,650 2000 8,870 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. The figures supplied is for May each year from 1992 to May 2000. 2. The figures have been rounded to the nearest ten cases. 3. If the Local Authority failed to return any data, this will have been estimated. 4. The data for the years prior to 1992 is unavailable. The data for the Sutton and Cheam constituency is unavailable as the lowest level that the data is collected for is by Local Authority. Source: Housing Benefit Management Information System, Quarterly 100 per cent. caseload inquiries taken in May 1992 to 2000.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

356 c100-2W; 134890

Session

1999-00

Subjects

Disability living allowance Housing benefit Jobseeker's allowance Income support Incapacity benefit Recipients Social security benefits Sutton

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk