Winter Fuel Payments (Hansard, 30 March 1998)

§ Mr. Denham

Winter 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 this winter and next, to help pensioners with fuel bills to pay. This is the first time any Government have provided additional help with heating costs to all pensioners receiving a retirement pension or one of a number of other qualifying benefits.

The making of this winter's payments has been an enormous and unprecedented exercise. In order to establish all eligible pensioners, correctly identify pensioner households, and determine the amount each should receive, it was necessary to correlate data in around 15 million computer records, involving 15 qualifying benefits, across nine computer systems. Overall, almost ten million payments will have been made to over seven million pensioner households by the end of March.

So far, within the Department's Headquarters, around 400 letters have been received direct from members of the public and a further 150 from hon. Members regarding the scheme.

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. Simon Burns, dated 27 March 1998: The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent parliamentary questions asking how many letters the Benefits Agency (BA) and the DSS have received from members of the public about the winter fuel payments; how many calls the Winter Fuel Payments Telephone Hotline has received to the latest available date; and if she will provide a breakdown of the nature of the calls received by the Winter Fuel Payments Hotline. The making of almost 10 million winter fuel payments to over seven million pensioner households before the end of March 1998 has been a challenging task for the Benefits Agency. This will have been achieved whilst maintaining normal benefit business. Around one and a half million of the poorest pensioners, those receiving Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, received their payment of £50 during January. Other eligible pensioners are entitled to a payment of £20 or £10. Where they live alone, are the only eligible pensioner in a household, or are of no fixed abode, they are entitled to £20; otherwise, they are entitled to £10. The information requested relating to the number of letters received by the BA from members of the public about Winter Fuel Payments is not available at present. We are currently compiling statistics on the number of enquiries received about Winter Fuel Payments, in addition to the statistics collated by the Winter Fuel Helpline. As the payments exercise is still ongoing, it is anticipated that the information will be available some time after the end of April. I will provide the number of enquiries received once the information is available. Between 5 January and 20 March 1998 the Winter Fuel Payment Helpline has received a total of 136,284 customer calls. Of these calls 116,273 relate to payment queries, 4,486 relate to non-payment queries and there have been 15,525 miscellaneous queries which relate to all other aspects of winter fuel help. I hope you find this reply is helpful.

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