HC Deb 17 July 2000 vol 354 cc38-9W
Mr. Field

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will place in the Library a copy of his Department's study of remote access terminal usage. [130713]

Angela Eagle

There has been no specific study of local authority usage of Remote Access Terminals (RATs). However during the period April 1999 to March 2000 over three million enquiries were made via RATs. The first wave of the Department's Local Authority Omnibus Survey, published in April 2000, established that 80 per cent. of local authorities believed that RATs had made a positive contribution to the administration of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.