[holding answer 15 January 2008]: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie. I have asked her to provide the hon. Member with the information requested.
Letter from Lesley Strathie, dated 19 February 2008:
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about what the most common length of time was for each benefit delivery centre or processing site that Social Fund applicants had to wait for initial decisions, internal reviews, applications awaiting any action and applications not yet registered, or best estimate thereof in the most recent period for which figures are available. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.
Information is available only for initial decisions.
The most common clearance times (mode) for discretionary Social Fund applications in November 2007 are given in the table.
Social fund benefit delivery centre by region Community care grants Crisis loans Budgeting loans East of England Essex n/a 1 2 Norwich BDC 1 1 7 East Midlands East Midlands North 7 1 4 South East Midlands 7 1 6 London Balham3 10 and 11 1 7 Ilford 5 1 2 North East Northumbria 6 1 4 South Tyneside and Wear Valley 2 1 5 Tees Valley 5 1 5 North West Greater Liverpool 10 — 6 Chorlton BDC 8 — 4 Scotland Inverness BDC 11 — 3 Springburn BDC 12 — 3 South East Milton Keynes BDC 25 — 11 South West South West Central 6 — 5 Wales Llanelli BDC 14 — 5 South East Wales 8 — 8 West Midlands West Midlands SF 5 — 11 Yorkshire and Humberside Y & H Bradford 3 and 4 — 4 Y & H Sheffield 2 — 1 Notes 1. Insufficient data are available for Essex for Community Care Grants. This is because of a limitation of the Management Information System. 2. Numbers are based on applications cleared in November 2007, not on applications received during that month. 3. The two figures given are the most common clearance times (the same number of Community Care Grant applications were cleared in each number of working days). Key: BDC -Benefit Delivery Centre SF - Social Fund Y&H -Yorkshire and Humberside Source: DWP Social Fund Policy, Budget and Management Information System