§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many households containing a person aged 60 years or over were in receipt of council tax benefit in each of the last 12 months. [187164]
§ Mr. PondThe information is not available in the format requested. At May 2002 the number of council tax benefit recipients aged 60 years or over in Great Britain was 2,363,000.
Notes:
- 1. The figure is based on a 1 per cent. sample and therefore subject to a degree of sampling variation.
- 2. The figure is rounded to the nearest thousand.
- 3. Council tax benefit totals exclude any Second Adult Rebate cases.
- 4. The figure refers to cases where the claimant and/or partner is aged 60 or over.
- 5. The figure refers to benefit units, which might be a single person, couple or family.
Source:Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Management Information System, Annual 1 per cent. sample, taken in May 2002.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of local authorities have produced a written take-up strategy of a sufficient standard to satisfy his Department's performance standard on take-up of housing and council tax benefits; and which local authorities have failed to meet this standard. [187163]
§ Mr. PondThe Performance Standards for housing benefit and council tax benefit set out the standards of performance the Department expects local authorities to achieve over a period of time. Self-assessment is voluntary so local authorities are not required to report performance against them to the Department, although we encourage them to do so. Of the 64 local authorities who have so far supplied information about their performance, 49 (77 per cent.) have a written take-up strategy which meets the standard. Insufficient data are available to provide a comprehensive list of all the local authorities who do not meet this standard.