§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to her answer of 9 June 1998,Official Report, columns 545–46, concerning the BIP, for what reasons she was unable to list the operational and legal issues that have prevented a review of BIP cases prior to 9 February 1998. [45770]
§ Mr. Denham[holding answer 15 June 1998]: On 17 June, we announced that action will be taken to look again at Benefit Integrity Project cases decided before 9 February 1998, where a decision to reduce or remove benefit was based solely on evidence provided by the claimant and where the claimant did not seek a review of the decision.
In order to make this announcement legal issues needed to be resolved relating to: our scope to take review action on cases that had already been reviewed as part of the Project; how and when the claimant should be involved, and what sort of decisions might be made. Operationally, we also needed to identify the scale of the exercise and how it might be conducted sensitively, without raising false expectations. Claimants need to be fully informed about the possible outcomes of a further review of their entitlement but in such a way that they are not dissuaded from exercising their right to have their case looked at again if that is what they choose. We are currently finalising the details of this new exercise.