Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average waiting time for applicants to the Funeral Expenses Payment is in the West Midlands since September 2021.
We cannot provide the average waiting time for applicants to the Funeral Expenses Payment on a regional level, as requested.
However, Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT), for Great Britain, is reported annually in Section 4 of the Social Fund Annual Report, up to 2020/21:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-fund-annual-report-2020-to-2021
For 2020/21, the AACT in Great Britain was 20.3 days.