---

Welfare Reform Bill

This has been an interesting if concentrated debate about issues associated with the Social Fund and the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, referred to the consultation that took place in December last year. It was an informal and fairly short consultation, although we received more than 80 responses, which have helped us to frame our deliberations. As I said in response to an earlier amendment, further consultation will take place this year and we will consider all replies, including views expressed about the amendment. My noble friend Lady Hollis asked for data on the number of loans from the fund. The discretionary Social Fund is a cash-limited fund. For the year 2007-08, which is the latest for which I have details, the total net expenditure for the community care grant was £138.9 million. The average award was £458. The number of awards was 247,000. To go through the table more logically, the number of applications received was 543,000 and the number of initial decisions was 535,000. There were 247,000 awards, which means that 46 per cent of the initial decisions led to awards. Gross expenditure was £138.9 million. As regards budgeting loans, 1.5 million applications were received and there were 1.2 million awards, which amounts to 75 per cent of the applications received. Gross expenditure was £511,000 and there was £463,000 in recoveries. Therefore, the net expenditure was £47,000.