HC Deb 06 April 1998 vol 310 cc128-9W
Mr. Charles Clarke

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the food science research contracts allocated by his Department and its agencies in 1997–98 broken down by(a) length of contract, (b) value of contract and (c) institution securing the contract. [37951]

Ms Jowell

The Department funds the following contracts which could be considered to fall under the heading of food science research:

better, simpler, more efficient service to clients. As part of this, we are introducing a new overpayment recovery strategy for the Benefits Agency which will ensure that: causes of overpayments are identified and dealt with; failures in recovery of overpayment are minimised; and overpayments are identified, calculated and recovery is effected as quickly as possible.

As part of the new strategy an Information Technology (IT) based Accounting and Management system will be introduced and will serve to strengthen control of overpayments calculation and recovery along with the integrity of the benefits system. This new IT system is designed to: enhance overpayments operations; track overpayments from discovery to recovery; and provide accurate accounting and management information that will be used to identify trends and inform future options for change. It will also help to prevent build up of arrears.

The Government have inherited a large backlog of uncalculated overpayment cases accumulated within the Benefits Agency over a number of years, amounting to approximately 300,000 cases. Some 170,000 of these cases are a combination of departmental error cases where there is no right of recovery and cases that, due to their age, would not be cost effective to pursue or are now impossible to calculate as the documentation is no longer available.

Work on new cases is increasing, partly due to the success of the Security and Control Project in identifying fraud and inaccuracy. Processing this work is being put at risk because of the backlog.

Therefore to assist with the prompt clearance of new work, a large number of non recoverable cases are being cleared from the backlog and special temporary measures taken to speed up processing of newly arising non recoverable cases.

The most cost effective way is to estimate rather than calculate these overpayments. The cases involve an estimated £80 million of nominal overpayments that under normal circumstances the vast majority of which would not be recoverable and some not viable to recover.

Cases involving fraud will be excluded from this exercise.

The new system emphasises our commitment to modernise all areas of the Department's business.