Funeral Payments

(asked on 12th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 March 2021 to Question 162619, o Funeral Payments, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the rejection of 47 per cent of applications for the funeral expenses payment in January 2021.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 19th April 2021

In reference to the Answer of 8th March 2021 to Question 162619, the following figures were included: In January 2021 there were 3,890 Funeral Expenses Payment applications received, and 2,050 awards paid.

Reasons for this discrepancy are below:

  • The figures relate to applications received by DWP, not applications processed. Some applications may have been withdrawn before a decision was made.
  • Applications received aren’t always processed in the same month in which they are received. The clearance standards for average actuals clearance times for Funeral Expenses Payments are 13 days. An application made in January 2021 might not have been awarded until February 2021.
  • The number of applications made is not equal to the number of people who made applications, as individuals may make multiple applications in a given time period.
  • Differences between any comparisons made of applications received, initial decisions, awards and initial refusals are due to applications being withdrawn; applicants rejecting or not responding to loan offers; and decisions outstanding at the time of the count.

We publish application success rate in Annex 1 of the Social Fund Annual Report. The latest available is the 2018/19 report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-fund-annual-report-2018-to-2019/social-fund-annual-report-2018-to-2019

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