§ Mr. WillettsTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what checks are being undertaken to ensure the veracity of National Insurance numbers; and when the programme to check the accounts held on the Departmental Central Index will end. [148489]
§ Mr. RookerAll adult applicants for a National Insurance number (NINO) will be interviewed by specially trained staff. Information given by the applicant in support of their application will be corroborated. Expert staff will also scrutinise documentation provided using specialist equipment.
We have developed an enhanced NINO process for adult registration which will be rolled out nationally by 31 March 2001. This enhanced process will increase the veracity of new National Insurance numbers with less duplicate accounts being created.
The Departmental Central Index (DCI) Data Cleaning Project will end on 31 March 2001. Since the project began we have removed over 204,000 duplicate records from the DCI database.