§ David DavisTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people have migrated from over-the-counter post office benefit payments to direct bank transfer since 1 April in(a) Haltemprice and Howden, (b) the East Riding of Yorkshire and (c) England. [116766]
§ Mr. PondThe information is not available in the precise format requested.
Information has been compiled from the data available on 22 March 2003 and that available on 6 September 2003, and is shown in the following table.
Number of customers receiving benefits that have migrated from payments at post offices to those paid into bank, building society or Post Office card accounts, which may also be collectable at post offices, between 22 March 2003 and 6 September 2003 Number of customers Haltemprice and Howden constituency 1,570 East Riding of Yorkshire local authority 6,615 England 977,770 The above figures are payload not caseload figures, therefore a claimant may be counted more than once if they are on several benefits.
Notes
Customers who have chosen to be paid into a bank account a Post Office card account will continue to be paid by order book until their present order book runs out, and will not have been included in the numbers above where that order book was still current on 6 September.
Source
DWP Information Centre, Information and Analysis Directorate (100 per cent. data).
§ Malcolm BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what percentage of recipients in each benefit category do not have a bank account; what486W measures his Department is taking to encourage the take-up of the Post Office card accounts by those without a bank or building society account; and what targets his Department has set for the paying of benefits by automatic credit transfer to those without a bank or building society account. [137745]
§ Mr. PondThe following table shows the percentage of recipients in each benefit category that do not have a bank account suitable for direct payment. This information has been derived from the data used to compile the Family Resources Survey1 (FRS) 2001–02.
Benefit Per cent. of recipients in each benefit category that do not have a bank account suitable for direct payment Working age benefits 33 Disability and carer's benefit 23 Retirement pension1 10 Child benefit 12 War pensions 8 All benefits 13 1 Excluding M1G cases. The Department has a published Public Service Agreement target that by 2005, 85 per cent. of customers will have their benefits paid by direct payment. People are being provided with all the information they need on all of their "account options", including which accounts can be used at post office branches. It will be up to the customers themselves to decide which type of account they wish to have their money paid into. Already 87 per cent. of all customers have access to a bank account that can receive direct payment.
The move to direct payment is progressing well. Key figures on the progress of conversion to direct payment are available in the Library, updated every four weeks.
1GB household survey of people aged 16 and above and not in full time, non-advanced education.