Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications for Social Fund funerals were made in each year between 2010 and 2015; how many such applications were refused; and what the (a) budget and (b) lowest payment made was.

Table 1 shows the number of applications for Funeral Expenses Payments which were made and the number refused in the financial years 2010/11 to 2014/15.

Table 1

Data sourced from the DWP policy, Budget and Management Information System and is published in the Annual Report by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the Social Fund for the relevant year.

The budget for the Social Fund, Funeral Expenses Payment (FEP) expenditure is demand-led. Legislation prescribes that payments are made to all eligible applicants. That is people responsible for arranging a funeral who meet the rules on relationships with the deceased and receive a qualifying benefit. Provision for FEPs is made by central Government through the supply estimate process, but these figures are not translated into an operational budget and do not impact eligibility or award amounts.

In a minority of cases funeral expense payments are subsequently recovered from the deceased’s estate and in these cases the net amount can be very small. Given the small numbers involved it is not appropriate to release figures as there is a risk of identifying individuals.