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Social Security Benefits: Children

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of children lived in households where at least one person was claiming (a) income support, (b) incapacity benefit and (c) job seeker’s allowance at the latest date for which figures are available. [198783]

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Mr. Timms: The most recent available information is in the table. It is important to note that these categories overlap; if the claimant is in receipt of more than one of the benefits listed, a child will appear in each relevant category. This means that the three categories cannot be
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added together to calculate the overall number and proportion of children living in households which are in receipt of these benefits. The figures also include children in households where people are both in receipt of benefit and working.

Children dependent on a parent or guardian claiming income support (IS), incapacity benefit (IB), and jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) as at April 2007
	Dependent children aged 0-15	Proportion of dependent children aged 0-15
Parent/guardian claiming IS	1,805,575	16.2
Parent/guardian claiming IB	570,210	5.1
Parent/guardian claiming JSA	164,550	1.5
Notes: 1. All caseload figures supplied have been rounded to the nearest five. 2. Information is for a snapshot in time of claimants on the computer system, and will, therefore, exclude a very small number of cases that are held clerically. 3. Data represents children dependent on a parent or guardian who is claiming incapacity benefit, jobseekers allowance, or income support. 4. Due to the introduction of child tax credits in April 2003, information on child dependents is not reliably completed on the benefit computer system therefore children have been merged onto benefit claims from child benefit records with permission from HMRC. 5. If the claimant is in receipt of more than one of the benefits listed a child will appear in each relevant category. 6. The total number of children with child benefit aged 0-15 has been used as percentage denominators Source: DWP Information Directorate

The number and proportion of children whose parent or guardian is in receipt of one or more of these benefits is presented in the following table. The figures also include children in households where people are both in receipt of benefit and working. This data therefore differ from those used to measure progress against the public service agreement target for children in workless households, which is measured using the Labour Force survey. Since 1997 the proportion of children living in workless households in Great Britain has fallen from 18.7 per cent. to 16 per cent. in quarter 2 of 2007, which is a reduction of 405,000.

Children dependent on a parent or guardian claiming income support (IS), incapacity benefit (IB), or jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) as at April 2007
	Dependent children aged 0-15	Proportion of dependent children aged 0-15
Parent/guardian claiming one or more of IS, IB and JSA	2,189,960	19.7
Notes: 1. All caseload figures supplied have been rounded to the nearest five. 2. Information is for a snapshot in time of claimants on the computer system, and will, therefore, exclude a very small number of cases that are held clerically. 3. Data represents children dependent on a parent or guardian who is claiming incapacity benefit, jobseekers allowance, or income support. 4. Due to the introduction of child tax credits in April 2003, information on child dependents is not reliably completed on the benefit computer system therefore children have been merged onto benefit claims from child benefit records with permission from HMRC. 5. The total number of children with child benefit aged 0-15 has been used as percentage denominators. Source: DWP Information Directorate

Social Security Benefits: Fraud

Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in each London borough were (a) prosecuted for and (b) convicted of benefit fraud offences in each of the last five years; and what the cost of pursuing such prosecutions was. [210269]

Mr. Plaskitt: Information regarding DWP-administered benefits is not available below national and regional level.

The available information regarding the local authority administered benefits, housing benefit and council tax benefit, is in the following tables.

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Total number of cases accepted for prosecution
Local authority	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Barking	0	1	15	11	9
Barnet	14	30	26	27	21
Bexley	24	31	23	31	26
Brent	10	15	36	54	30
Bromley	4	18	30	35	34
Camden	1	9	5	22	2
City of London	1	0	0	0	0
Croydon	8	39	20	17	33
Ealing	27	41	34	41	15
Enfield	0	9	62	75	30
Greenwich	17	31	48	68	39
Hackney	5	0	35	14	20
Hammersmith and Fulham	13	40	39	50	33
Haringey	12	11	38	19	4
Harrow	2	3	16	20	32
Havering	6	13	14	18	23
Hillingdon	15	34	13	9	15
Hounslow	13	13	10	18	21
Islington	15	14	18	19	n/a
Kensington and Chelsea	0	15	12	36	n/a
Kingston upon Thames	0	6	5	9	2
Lambeth	0	47	22	49	61
Lewisham	17	29	42	79	n/a
Merton	0	2	3	5	7
Newham	19	56	32	12	10
Redbridge	62	32	35	52	15
Richmond upon Thames	4	4	1	3	13
Southwark	17	38	31	39	50
Sutton	20	13	14	16	8
Tower Hamlets	2	2	5	14	34
Waltham Forest	7	17	29	45	16
Wandsworth	18	15	13	19	12
Westminster	17	24	23	18	n/a

Total number of guilty verdicts obtained
Local authority	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Barking	0	1	7	3	12
Barnet	11	18	18	27	26
Bexley	22	19	15	26	22
Brent	9	14	13	43	26
Bromley	3	10	14	21	32
Camden	2	9	4	15	7
City of London	1	0	0	0	0
Croydon	7	17	16	13	19
Ealing	18	36	25	30	37
Enfield	0	6	54	55	40
Greenwich	23	27	45	59	36
Hackney	3	0	12	6	37
Hammersmith and Fulham	20	21	37	32	46
Haringey	10	11	24	25	10
Harrow	1	0	7	15	26
Havering	1	10	15	10	20
Hillingdon	15	34	13	9	15
Hounslow	9	11	9	6	15
Islington	14	11	6	17	n/a
Kensington and Chelsea	0	8	7	23	25
Kingston upon Thames	0	3	6	5	3
Lambeth	0	13	31	39	28
Lewisham	16	18	35	46	n/a
Merton	0	2	3	3	9
Newham	11	37	29	23	n/a
Redbridge	38	35	26	35	26
Richmond upon Thames	2	1	2	3	13
Southwark	8	22	28	30	49
Sutton	15	10	12	10	11
Tower Hamlets	1	1	2	13	26
Waltham Forest	4	12	24	30	17
Wandsworth	17	14	11	10	17
Westminster	13	14	15	14	n/a
n/a = data not available Note: Data on costs in pursuing these prosecutions is not available. Source: Estimates are based on Stats 124 administrative data returns.

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