Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claims for the Social Fund Funeral Expenses Payment Scheme his Department has (a) received and (b) accepted in each of the last five years in (i) Birmingham, Northfield constituency, (ii) West Midlands and (iii) England.

Table 1 below gives the number of applications for Funeral Expenses Payments received in England and in the West Midlands government office region for each of the last 5 financial years from 2011/12 to 2015/16. Table 2 gives the number of awards for Funeral Expenses Payments made in those two areas.

DWP does not hold data on Funeral Expenses Payments at constituency level.

Table 1: Applications received for Funeral Expenses Payments in West Midlands and England between 2011/12 and 2015/16

Source: Policy, Budget and Management Information System

Table 2: Awards made for Funeral Expenses Payments in West Midlands and England between 2011/12 and 2015/16

Source: Policy, Budget and Management Information System

Notes

• The number of applications and awards are rounded to the nearest 100.
• The applications figures are based on applications received by DWP, not applications processed. Some applications may have been withdrawn before a decision was made.
• The award figures include awards made after review, reconsideration or appeal following an initial refusal.
• These figures do not include applications which were processed clerically and have not been entered on to the Social Fund Computer System.
• The number of awards made in each year is not equal to the number of people who made applications or received awards in that year. An individual may make multiple applications in a given time period.