Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many lower-layer super output areas are within Telford constituency; how those areas are ranked by top (a) 1%, (b) 5% and (c) 10% in the index of multiple deprivation; and what impact that data has on the allocation of funding by her Department.

Data for the index for multiple deprivation at lower level super output area can be accessed from the Parliament website at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-indices-of-deprivation/.

In England, the Household Support Fund (HSF) is a DWP funded scheme for Local Authorities (LAs) to provide discretionary support to vulnerable households in the most need. The distribution of the funding is targeted at the areas of the country with the most vulnerable households, on the basis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) local population estimates and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) scores. Allocation amounts for upper tier Local Authorities in England are therefore reflective of population size and relative deprivation.

Eligibility for benefits administered by the department, and the relevant support that it provides through the Jobs and Careers Service and any contracted provision, is typically determined by the individual benefit rules and criteria, which do not explicitly account for the Index of Multiple Deprivation.