Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what is the average time taken to process an application for funeral expenses from the Social Fund from application submission to decision in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland, (c) Wales, (d) England, (e) Northern Ireland in each of the last four years for which figures are available.

The average number of working days taken to process applications for funeral payments in England, Scotland, Wales and Great Britain are set out for each of the last four financial years in Table 1 below.

Information regarding funeral payments for Northern Ireland is a matter for the Northern Ireland office.

Table 1: Average working days taken to process applications for funeral payments in England, Scotland, Wales and Great Britain, 2010/11 to 2013/14

For additional context, the average monthly clearance times between April 2014 and November 2014 are given in Table 2. As these figures are based on a shorter time frame and Funeral Payment applications vary throughout the year; please note that these figures are not directly comparable to those in Table 1.

Table 2: Average number of working days taken to process applications for funeral payments in England, Scotland, Wales and Great Britain, by month, April 2014 to November 2014

Notes

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

· The clearance time for funeral payment applications is measured in whole working days from the date the application is received until the date the decision is taken.