Girocheques (Hansard, 18 January 1994)

§ Mr. Forsyth

Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service Agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 18 January 1994:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your questions about the method by which unemployment benefit girocheques are delivered to the Doncaster area and what irregularities have occurred in their delivery over the last four months.

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It may be helpful if I explain that the Employment Service (ES) is in the process of updating it's benefit payments computer system. The National Unemployment Benefit Computer (NUBS 1) has been in operation since the mid eighties. We are currently replacing it with NUBS 2; this process will be complete by the end of September 1994.

For people on Training for Work, Learning for Work and Community Action, payments are made by a different system, the Employment Service Payments system (ESP).

NUBS 1 girocheques are processed at Reading, and NUBS 2/ESP at Washington, Tyne and Wear. The Royal Mail service for each of these is different.

It is the objective of the ES to achieve delivery of a girocheque to clients within three working days of attending the local office to make the declaration which generates a payment. Clients are given this information in writing when they first attend to claim benefit.

Under NUBS 1 girocheques are produced in postcode order and are sorted on the Reading site by Royal Mail staff. They are then transported by rail, road or air depending on the destination. Many of the destinations are served by "direct bags" which go directly to the local Royal Mail delivery office.

The NUBS 2 girocheques are postcode sorted at the point of despatch (Washington) and delivered direct to the Royal Mail delivery offices via Royal Mail Streamline courier service. This ensures that bags containing the girocheques do not enter the Royal Mail system until the bags reach the destination town and it is only then that they are opened.

ESP girocheques are sent direct to clients from Washington via the normal First Class post. To support the use of First Class post, offices are loaded onto the Area Computer Centre closest to their own locality.

Close liaison is maintained between NUBS/ESP management teams and their Royal Mail counterparts to ensure that delivery systems support the ES business objectives and, where problems occur, remedial action is urgently introduced.

During the last four months there have been 15 delays in the receipt of girocheques reported in Doncaster. Eleven of these were ESP payments and four were NUBS 2. In each case the girocheque was delivered within three days. It appears that clients have reported non receipt after two days as a delay.

At Mexborough, there have been nine reported delays in receipt of NUBS 1 giros since September 1993. All of these were caused by split responsibility for Mexborough postcodes between Rotherham and Sheffield sorting offices. It has now been arranged for Royal Mail staff at Reading to perform a more precise identification of mail to ensure that it goes to the correct sorting office in future. Again it is confirmed that none of the delays exceeded three days between signing and receipt.

I hope this is helpful.