Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of funeral expenses payment claims were successful in each year since 2005.

Data on the amount claimed for Funeral Expenses Payments (FEPs) is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The number of FEP applications received by the DWP and awards as a proportion of FEP applications processed, in each calendar year since 2005, are given below in table 1. They are rounded to the nearest 0.1%. Figures are not given for 2018 as the calendar year is incomplete.

Due to the timing of application processing, figures on awards may relate to applications processed in the previous year.

Table 1: FEP applications received and proportion of FEP applications resulting in an award, Great Britain 2005 - 2017

Source: Social Fund Policy, Budget, and Management Information System

Notes:

• These figures do not include applications that were processed clerically and have not been entered on to the Social Fund Computer System.
• Figures on applications received differ from the number of applications processed by the DWP. Some applications may have been withdrawn before a decision was made.
• The number of applications made in each year is not equal to the number of people who made applications in that year. An individual may make multiple applications in a given time period.
• The proportion of FEP claims resulting in an award is calculated by dividing the number of awards in a given year by the number of applications processed by the DWP in a given year. The number of awards used in this calculation includes awards made after review, reconsideration or appeal following an initial refusal.