Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9 July 2015 to Question 5753, how many applications for Short Term Benefit Advance in 2014 were rejected; and for what reasons such applications were rejected.

The vast majority of refusals are either because (i) there was a doubt about whether the claimant would be entitled to the benefit being claimed and, therefore, we could not be sure that there was any benefit to advance or (ii) actual benefit was paid instead, which is a better outcome for the claimant.