§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many combined pension forecasts have been issued in each month since his Department's current forecasting scheme came into operation. [87164]
§ Mr. McCartney[holding answer 16 December 2002]: The combined pension forecast service was piloted from October 1999, and is now operational. Throughout the pilots the Department has worked with employers and pension providers to ensure they can issue combined pension forecasts to their employees and pension scheme members. Now the service is operational, we are continuing to recruit employers and pension providers in order to build up the service so that is can be made available to as many people as possible. To date, 348 schemes have expressed an interest in using this voluntary service.
770WThe complete process from recruitment to the time the employer or pension scheme provider provides combined forecasts, can take around 12 to 18 months, and as the private sector partner issues the statement, precise issue dates are their responsibility.
The Department has, however, worked in partnership with a number of providers to facilitate the issue of combined pension forecasts on the following dates:
Year 2002 Number of CPF's issued April 14,602 May 88 June 467 July 10,049 August — September 6,380 October 2,600 November — December 7,500 Total 75,186