asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received from or on behalf of the British Pensioners Association and if he will make a statement.
We have received a number of letters from or on behalf of the British Pensioners Association (Canada) asking for pensions payable in Canada to be increased.The Government accept the case in principle for paying annual increases to United Kingdom pensioners living in Canada. However, we do not have the resources to pay for all the improvements we should like to make to our social security system. We are therefore unlikely to be able to increase pensions in Canada in the foreseeable future.
| 3 June 1986 | 1 July 1986 | 29 July 1986 | 26 August 1986 | 23 September 1986 | 21 October 1986 | 18 November 1986 | 16 December 1986 | 13 January 1987 | |
| Post unlinked with files for two or more days | 1,640 | 2,282 | 2,802 | 1,938 | 1,166 | 1,165 | 928 | 1,191 | 985 |
| Postal claims outstanding | 486 | 424 | 710 | 836 | 764 | 651 | 539 | 389 | 446 |
| Single payment claims outstanding | .. | .. | 610 | 586 | 1,801 | 1,001 | 109 | 242 | 305 |
| Outstanding cases awaiting review of assessment | 799 | 363 | 1,749 | 1,282 | 547 | 181 | 300 | 259 | 357 |
| .. Figures unavailable. | |||||||||
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services pursuant to his reply of 19 February 1987, Official Report, column 820, what steps are being taken to reduce the amount of post not yet associated with files at the Blenheim grove Department of Health and Social Security office.
Additional administrative assistants, the grade responsible for associating post with the relevant files, have been recruited on a casual basis. There are currently 25 in post against a complement of 19.