HC Deb 20 November 2003 vol 413 cc1337-8W
Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what action he is taking to ensure that only the latest edition of benefit application forms is available for downloading and completion electronically. [140020]

Mr. Pond

Benefit application forms are not available for downloading and completion electronically. A review of Department for Work and Pensions PDF forms that can be completed on a computer, but not returned electronically, is underway.

John Barrett

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the annual cost to his Department of(a) income support fraud and (b) Jobseeker's Allowance fraud in the last three years. [138390]

Mr. Pond

Our estimates of levels of fraud and error in Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance are contained in the following reports which are available in the Library.

Year ending March 2000—National Statistics report: The Results of the Area Benefit Review and Quality Support Team from April 1999 to March 2000, Table 4.1 National Levels of Fraud and Customer Error in IS, Table 5.1 National levels of Fraud and Customer Error in JSA.

Year ending March 2001—National Statistics report: The results of the Area Benefit Review and Quality Support Team from April 2000 to March 2001, Table 2.1 National levels of Fraud, Customer Error and Official Error in IS, Table 2.2 National levels of Fraud, Customer Error and Official Error in JSA.

Year ending March 2002—National Statistics report: Fraud and Error in Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance from April 2001 to March 2002, Table 2.1 National Results Overpayments.

Miss McIntosh

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what measures his Department takes to ensure that benefit claimants who enquire about using a bank account to receive their benefits are informed of all available options, including the use of Post Office card accounts; [140099]

(2) what assessment he has made of (a) the tone and content of his Department's literature and (b) the impartiality of its advice on the relative merits of (i) bank accounts and (ii) Post Office card accounts as a means to receive benefit payments. [140094]

Mr. Pond

Already 87 per cent of all customers have access to a bank account that can receive Direct Payment. All staff, including front line, Call Centre and Information-line staff, have been provided with information on all of the account options available to the customer. It will be up to the customers themselves to decide which type of account they wish to have their money paid into. The role of DWP staff is to provide factual information in response to enquiries made.

The Department's information campaign, to support the move to Direct Payment, provides customers with factual information on the banking options available to them, including information on the Post Office card account.

This information campaign has been produced in consultation with the Post Office and a range of other stakeholders.

Customer information material is tested on groups of customers before it is issued. This helps to ensure that customers are supplied with all the information they need to choose the account option that is right for them and that they can understand that information.

The Department will continue to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of its customer information material and will make further changes if necessary.

Chris Ruane

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the amount of unclaimed(a) income support broken down by (i) pensioners and (ii) non-pensioners, (b) housing benefit broken down by (i) local authority and (ii) private tenants, (c) council tax benefit broken down by (i) local authority tenants, (ii) private tenants and (iii) owner occupiers, (d) family credit broken down by (i) couples and (ii) single parents, (e) disability living allowance and (f) attendance allowance in each Welsh constituency in each of the past 10 years; and if he will estimate the total amount of unclaimed benefit broken down by (A) local authority and (B) constituency in Wales in each year. [140432]

Mr. Pond

The information requested is not available.

National estimates of unclaimed amounts of Income Support, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance and Family Credit for different population groups are presented in the DWP publication series entitled "Income Related Benefits Estimates of Take-up". Copies of the publication can be found in the Library.