Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications were made to the Social Fund to cover the cost of funerals in each year since 2010; and how many of those applications were rejected.

From the latest data available, 305,840 applications have been made for Funeral Payments in Great Britain between January 2010 and September 2014, the latest data available. In the same period there have been 151,620 refusals.

Table 1 below shows the number of applications and refusals for each year. Note that 2014 data only extends to September thus far.

Notes

1. These figures do not include applications which were processed clerically and have not yet been entered on to the Social Fund Computer System.

2. The figures given are the number of applications and initial refusals in the given time period and not the number of people who made applications or received awards. An individual may make more than one application in a year. Information on the number of people who made applications and received awards is not available.

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3. The refusal figures given are based on the initial decisions made on each case and may include cases where an award was later made on review.

4. All figures are rounded to the nearest 10.