§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if all the benefit claimants affected by computer error referred to in his Department's response of 12 August to correspondence on behalf of Peter Sutton have been contacted and, where applicable, reimbursed and compensated for the error; and what was the total value of both(a) arrears of benefit and (b) compensation paid. [3107]
§ Mr. Roger EvansThis is an operational matter for Peter Mathison, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. David Hinchliffe, dated 11 November 1996:
207WThe Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking if all the benefit claimants affected by computer error referred to in his Department's response of 12th August to correspondence on behalf of Peter Sutton have been contacted and, where applicable, reimbursed and compensated for the error; and what was the total value of both arrears of benefit and compensation paid.The exercise to contact the 12,325 benefit customers affected by the computer fault is continuing. I can confirm that 2088 awards have been revised from the statistics received so far from Benefit Agency Offices. The information requested is not available as the statistics relate specifically to the number of cases where all action has been completed and not to the number of customers contacted. Full details of the current information received are in the following table:
Total number of cases identified Number revised Amount underpaid £000 Number of compensation claims Number of compensation claims so far awarded Amount of compensation paid £000 Retirement pension and windows' benefit 6,741 1,392 821 1,039 336 24 Invalidity benefit 5,583 696 133 156 41 2.7 Figures are provisional and subject to change.
Compensation will be payable in any case where the benefit arrears amount to over £50, the amount of compensation exceeds £5 and the delay in payment is more than eight months (retirement pension) or seven months (widows' benefit and invalidity benefit) from the date of entitlement to the revised rate of benefit.I hope you find this reply helpful.