HC Deb 14 December 1999 vol 341 cc106-7W
Mr. Coleman

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) when the consultants' review on the impact of the introduction of the changes to Council Tax Benefit Regulations will be published; and if he will make a statement; [101040]

(2) if he will list the local authorities which have taken part in the consultants' review of the impact of the changes to Council Tax Benefit Regulations. [101039]

Angela Eagle

In March 1999 we commissioned independent researchers to monitor the effects of the Council Tax Benefit (CTB) restriction introduced in April 1998. Because of the complexities of the research involving a small, tightly specified group of CTB claims and their corresponding council tax accounts and the interrogation of two IT systems, we began with a feasibility study. In July 1999 we decided that there was just enough evidence to suggest that local authorities (LAs) would be able to provide us with the required information to assess whether the research was practical.

We originally approached 55 local authorities with a view of obtaining data from 40. However, so far we have only received data from 22 authorities, and in some cases these are partial data. On the whole, participating LAs have sought to co-operate but have encountered difficulties and delays in extracting usable data. Currently we do not have enough data of sufficient quality to carry out reliable analyses. Therefore, we are planning to write again to the 33 local authorities who have not yet provided data to ask them to help us. At this stage, therefore, we cannot be precise about the research and publication details.

Participation in social research conducted on behalf of the Department is entirely voluntary; this applies to individuals and organisations. In order to encourage involvement and ensure as representative a picture as possible, we protect the confidentiality of respondents. As we provide a contractual assurance that participants, including local authorities in this case, will not be identified, we cannot list the names of authorities which have taken part in the review of the impact of changes to the Council Tax Benefit Regulations. However, individual local authorities may choose to indicate they have participated.