Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of occasions the time taken to authorise payment following an application for a Support for Mortgage Interest loan has exceeded her Departmental expectation of two weeks.

Where a claimant expresses an interest in taking up the offer of an SMI loan they will be sent a loan agreement and charge form to complete and return. They also receive detailed guidance on how to complete these documents.

The Department determines that 6 weeks is a sufficient time period for claimants to make a decision whether to take up the offer of an SMI loan. The Department ask that the loan agreement and charge form are returned as soon reasonably possible to enable them to be processed efficiently. A reminder is sent out after six weeks if the documents have not been received. Claimants may change their mind whether to take or decline a loan at any time.

Returned forms are checked for accuracy, and if correctly completed we would expect that, in the majority of cases, SMI Loan payments would be authorised within two weeks but this is dependent upon claimants benefit pay cycle.

The Department does not hold the data requested regarding how often payments are authorised within two weeks.