Letter from Michael Bichard to Mr. Henry McLeish, dated 29 April 1993:

As Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency it is my responsibility to answer questions about relevant operational matters. I am therefore replying to your recent Parliamentary Questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security asking, how many people were claiming Income Support in Scotland for the most recent date for which figures are available; and what estimate he has made of the total number of partners and dependants of those claimants.

You also ask, if he will give the most recently available figure for the Income Support live load in each of his Department's offices, and by each Benefits Agency district, in Scotland.

The information is not available in the format you requested and some of it is only available at a disproportionate cost. This is because statistics relate to the number of Income Support recipients rather than the number of claims.

Information about the numbers of partners and dependants of people claiming Income Support is not routinely collected. However, estimates of the numbers of partners and dependants of Income Support recipients are available from the Income Support Annual Statistical Enquiry (ASE). This is a point in time survey based on a one per cent sample of all people in receipt of Income Support.

The latest information from the ASE relates to May 1991. The estimates from this were 487,000 recipients, 69,000 partners and 249,000 dependants in Scotland.

I have appended the information relating to the Income Support live load per office and district as requested. This information is based on the Management Information Statistics as at 28 February 1993.

I hope this reply is helpful. A copy of this letter will appear in the Official Report and a copy will also be placed in the Library.