§ Mr. Duncan SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many failed winter fuel payments there were in the current year; and what assessment he has made of the reasons for failed payments. [53177]
§ Mr. DenhamWinter Fuel payments are one of a number of initiatives the Government have taken to help vulnerable people, especially the elderly, keep warm in the winter. Originally a total of £400 million was committed for two years (97/98 and 98/99), to help pensioners with fuel bills to pay.
As announced to the House by my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State on 17 July 1998, Official Report, columns 703–05 a further £0.5 billion has been allocated to extend the scheme beyond next winter. This will provide each eligible pensioner household with a £20 Winter Fuel payment.
335WThe administration of Winter Fuel payments is a matter for Peter Mathison, Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Iain Duncan Smith, dated 28 July 1998:
The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many failed winter fuel payments there were and what assessment has been made of the reasons for the failed payments.The making of winter fuel payments to almost 10 million pensioners, in over seven million households, before the end of March 1998 has been a challenging task for the Benefits Agency (BA). This has been achieved whilst maintaining normal benefit business.By 31 January 1998 we had issued £72,080,700 to 1,441,614 of the poorest pensioners, those receiving Income Support (IS) or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA). By the end of March we had issued a further £122,930,850 to a further 8,326,715 pensioners.Three different methods of payment have been used to make the payments to all eligible pensioners. A number of factors were taken into account in determining the appropriate method. The factors included: the normal method of payment used by the customer to receive their benefit; the ability of the relevant benefit system to make one-off payments by a number of different methods; the speed in which payments could be made; and, the cost and timescales required to introduce new methods of payment on individual computer systems. Payments were made based on information held on our computer systems during week commencing 5 January 1998. Payments have been made by the following three routes:Automated Credit Transfer direct to the pensioner's bank or building society account where the qualifying benefit is paid in this way (except where the qualifying benefit was Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Invalid Care Allowance, an industrial injury benefit, or one administered by the War Pensions Agency);Payable order sent to the pensioner's home address, where the qualifying benefit is Invalid Care Allowance, an industrial injury benefit, or one administered by the War Pensions Agency; otherwise,Girocheque sent to the pensioner's home address or the Post Office where the pensioner collects their qualifying benefit.The decision to send girocheques to the pensioners' Post Office was based on the fact that these customers represented by far the largest qualifying group and this was considered the most secure method of payment for them.However, not all those payments sent to the Post Offices were collected by the pensioners concerned. We have estimated that around 107,000 (2 per cent. of the volume issued) were not collected and these girocheques were returned to the nearest BA office, after 1 May 1998.BA District offices have been investigating the reasons for the non-collection, which have included recent death, hospitalisation, absence on holiday or the pensioner using a different Post Office. This is a time consuming process. Our deadline for the clearance of the payments which were returned was 30 June 1998. Feedback from the BA's District offices indicate that the majority of payments have now been made.As stated previously, according to our records, all payments should now have been made. The total amount of money paid out in Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners is £195,011,550. Priority was given to making the payments of £50 to the poorest pensioners, those receiving IS or income-based JSA.Other eligible pensioner households were entitled to a payment of £20. If there was more than one eligible pensioner in the household, each eligible pensioner was entitled to £10. In order to establish whether a payment of £20 or £10 was appropriate it was necessary to establish eligible pensioners, correctly identify pensioner households, and determine the amount each should 336W receive. To achieve this it was necessary to correlate data in around fifteen million computer records, involving fifteen qualifying benefits, across nine computer systems.The legislation states that the decision on whether a £10 or £20 payment was due would be based on 'official records'. Where pensioners live alone, or are the only eligible pensioner in a household, they were entitled to £20; otherwise, they were entitled to £10, including each person in a pensioner couple if they were both in receipt of a qualifying benefit.The £20 and £10 payments were issued in March 1998 following the data correlation exercise. Due to the huge volume of these payments, over 8 million, they were issued on a staged basis throughout March. Around 5 million of these payments were made by girocheque to the Post Office network and the BA liaised closely with the Post Office Counters Limited to try and ensure the prompt receipt of the payments by the pensioners concerned.All eligible pensioners should now have been issued with a Winter Fuel Payment, with the exception of a small number where BA is having difficulties in ascertaining the reason for non-collection from the Post Office. Where someone has not received a payment but is expecting one, they should contact the office which normally deals with their pension or benefit.Thank you for the opportunity to explain the position. I hope you find this reply helpful.
§ Mr. ColvinTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what is her Department's deadline for the clearance of all overdue winter fuel payments; [51938]
(2) how his Department determines the priorities for payment of the winter fuel payment; [51937]
(3) if he will make a statement on the factors underlying the delays in paying out the winter fuel payment of £20; [51939]
(4) what is the value of the backlog of the winter fuel payment to pensioners; [51940]
(5) how much money has been paid out in the winter fuel payment to pensioners; and how much is still owing. [52008]
§ Mr. DenhamWinter Fuel payments are one of a number of initiatives the Government have taken to help vulnerable people, especially the elderly, keep warm in the winter. A total of £400 million has been committed for two years (1997–98 and 1998–99), to help pensioners with fuel bills to pay.
As announced to the House by my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State on 17 July 1998, Official Report, columns 703–05, a further £0.5 billion has been allocated to extend the scheme beyond next winter. This will provide each eligible pensioner household with a £20 winter fuel payment.
The administration of winter fuel payments is a matter for Peter Mathison, Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Michael Colvin, dated 28 July 1998:
338WThe Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions concerning winter fuel payments scheme.The making of winter fuel payments to almost 10 million pensioners, in over seven million households, before the end of March 1998 has been a challenging task for the Benefits Agency (BA). This has been achieved whilst maintaining normal benefit business.337WBy 31 January 1998 we had issued £72,080,700 to 1,441,614 of the poorest pensioners, those receiving Income Support (IS) or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA). By the end of March we had issued a further £122,930,850 to a further 8,326,715 pensioners.Three different methods of payment have been used to make the payments to all eligible pensioners. A number of factors were taken into account in determining the appropriate method. The factors included: the normal method of payment used by the customer to receive their benefit; the ability of the relevant benefit system to make one-off payments by a number of different methods; the speed in which payments could be made; and, the cost and timescales required to introduce new methods of payment on individual computer systems. Payments were made based on information held on our computer systems during week commencing 5 January 1998. Payments have been made by the following three routes:Automated Credit Transfer direct to the pensioner's bank or building society account where the qualifying benefit is paid in this way (except where the qualifying benefit was Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Invalid Care Allowance, an industrial injury benefit, or one administered by the War Pensions Agency).Payable order sent to the pensioner's home address, where the qualifying benefit is Invalid Care Allowance, an industrial injury benefit, or one administered by the War Pensions Agency; otherwise,Girocheque sent to the pensioner's home address or the Post Office where the pensioner collects their qualifying benefit.The decision to send girocheques to the pensioners' Post Office was based on the fact that these customers represented by far the largest qualifying group and this was considered the most secure method of payment for them.However, not all those payments sent to the Post Offices were collected by the pensioners concerned. We have estimated that around 107,000 (2 % of the volume issued) were not collected and these girocheques were returned to the nearest BA office, after 1 May 1998.BA District offices have been investigating the reasons for the non-collection, which have included recent death, hospitalisation, absence on holiday or the pensioner using a different Post Office. This is a time consuming process. Our deadline for the clearance of the payments which were returned was 30 June 1998. Feedback from the BA's District offices indicate that the majority of payments have now been made.As stated previously, according to our records, all payments should now have been made. The total amount of money paid out in Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners is £195,011,500. Priority was given to making payments to the poorest pensioners, those receiving IS or income-based JSA.Other eligible pensioner households were entitled to a payment of £20. If there was more than one eligible pensioner in the household, each eligible pensioner was entitled to £10. In order to establish whether a payment of £20 or £10 was appropriate it was necessary to establish eligible pensioners, correctly identify pensioner households, and determine the amount each should receive. To achieve this it was necessary to correlate data in around fifteen million computer records, involving fifteen qualifying benefits, across nine computer systems.The legislation states that the decision on whether a £10 or £20 payment was due would be based on 'official records'. Where pensioners live alone, or are the only eligible pensioner in a household, they were entitled to £20; otherwise, they were entitled to £10, including each person in a pensioner couple if they were both in receipt of a qualifying benefit.The £20 and £10 payments were issued in March 1998 following the data correlation exercise. Due to the huge volume of these payments, over 8 million, they were issued on a staged basis throughout March. Around 5 million of these payments were made by girocheque to the Post Office network and the BA liaised closely with the Post Office Counters Limited to try and ensure the prompt receipt of the payments by the pensioners concerned.I hope you find this reply helpful.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many pensioners have returned overpayments of winter fuel payment to her Department; [53030]
(2) how many winter fuel payments were the subject of administrative error; [53032]
(3) in how many cases official records used for the distribution of winter fuel payments have been found to be incorrect; [53031]
(4) how many pensioners have complained to his Department about incorrect calculation of their winter fuel payments. [53033]
§ Mr. DenhamWinter fuel payments are one of a number of initiatives the Government have taken to help vulnerable people, especially the elderly, keep warm this winter. Originally, a total of £400 million was committed for two years (97–98 and 98–99), to help pensioners with fuel bills to pay.
As announced to the House by my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State on 17 July 1998, Official Report, column 703–05, a further £0.5 billion has been allocated to extend the scheme beyond next winter. This will provide each eligible pensioner household with a £20 winter fuel payment.
The administration of Winter Fuel Payments is a matter for Peter Mathison, Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Christopher Chope, dated 28 July 1998:
The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions concerning winter fuel payments.The making of winter fuel payments to almost ten million eligible pensioners, in over seven million households, before the end of March 1998 was a challenging task for the Benefits Agency. This was achieved whilst maintaining normal business.Around one and a half million of the poorest pensioners, those receiving income Support (IS) or income-based Jobseekers's Allowance (JSA), received their payment of £50 during January. Other eligible pensioners were entitled to a payment of £20 or £10. Where they lived alone, were the only eligible pensioner in a household, or were of no fixed abode, they were entitled to £20; otherwise, they were entitled to £10.In order to establish other eligible pensioners, correctly identify pensioner households, and determine the amount each should receive, it was necessary to correlate data. This involved around fifteen million computer records, fifteen qualifying benefits, across nine computer systems. Where only one eligible person was identified as living at an address a payment of £20 was made. Where more than one eligible person was identified as living at an address a payment of £10 was made.In excess of 9.7 million Winter Fuel Payments were made automatically by 31 March 1998.Three different methods of payment have been used to make the payments to all eligible pensioners. A number of factors were taken into account in determining the appropriate method. The factors included: the normal method of payment used by the customer to receive their benefit; the ability of the relevant benefit system to make one-off payments by a number of different methods; the speed in which payments could be made; and, the cost and timescales required to introduce new methods of payment on individual computer systems. Payments were made based on information held on our computer systems during week commencing 5 January 1998.339WWhere official Departmental records were not correct or incomplete, it was possible that the amount of some payments may not have corresponded with the actual circumstances. For example, there were cases where two eligible pensioners lived at the same address and in the same household, but the address details held on the relevant benefit computer records were incorrect or incomplete for either or both of them. In such cases, the data correlation exercise may not have identified more than one eligible person at an address and in accordance with the provisions of the legislation each were entitled to a payment of £20. There is no overprovision in such instances, but any voluntarily offer to repay any amount would be accepted.Out of the 1.5 million £50 payments made to IS and income-based JSA pensioners in January we are aware that some payments were incorrectly made or duplicated. We know that 9,357 payments were made where information held within official records indicated payment was inappropriate. A further 211 duplicate payments were made to those pensioners who transferred from IS to Income-based JSA during the qualifying week of 5 January 1998. Of the relevant payments this represents a 0.68 per cent. error rate. In financial terms the total cost of these errors amounts to £488,400, and again this represents 0.68 per cent. of the total sum issued of £72,080,700.In addition we also know that due to a computer operator error, 40,801 IS payments were sent out with an incorrect issue date on them. All these girocheques were replaced automatically within 72 hours. To date we are aware that 438 pensioners have cashed both the original and replacement payments.Information relating to the number of returned payments is currently being collated. I will provide this figure as soon as it becomes available.Information relating to the number of cases where official records have been found to be incorrect is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.Although a dedicated helpline is available to the public, the number of complaints we have received regarding the issuing in error of winter fuel payments is not recorded separately.I hope you find this reply helpful.