Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of funeral payment decisions were made within his Department's target time in each of the last three years.
The following table has been taken from the Social Fund Annual Report for 2012/13 which is the latest available published data and the Social Fund Annual Reports for 2011/12 and 2010/11.
The table shows that the average clearance time for Funeral Payment awards was 14.76 working days against a target of 16 working days in 2012/13, 13.8 working days in 2011/12 and 14.5 working days in 2010/11.
Funeral Payments | |||||
Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT) in working days | AACT Achieved | AACT Achieved | % Cleared within AACT Standard | % Cleared within AACT Standard plus 2 days | % Cleared within AACT Standard Plus 5 days |
2012/13 | 16 | 14.76 | 65.10% | 74.20% | 83.00% |
2011/12 | 16 | 13.8 | * | * | * |
2010/11 | 16 | 14.5 | * | * | * |
* denotes data unavailable